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CHRIST  AND  LIFE 


W^    O    R    K    S      BY 
ROBERT  E.  SREER 


MlSSIOXABY  PkINCI- 
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ROBER)T  E.  6 PEER, 


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FLEMING  H'REVELL  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK       CHICAGO       TORONTO 


o 


THIRD  EDITION 


Copyright  igoi 

BY 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 
(November) 


PREFACE 

The  chapters  which  compose  this  little 
book  appeared  originally  as  articles  in  the 
religious  papers.  Twelve  of  them  were 
published  as  a  series  in  Forzvard;  six  as 
editorials  in  The  Sunday  School  Times; 
three  appeared  in  The  Congregationalist, 
and  the  others  in  The  Churchman  and 
The  Intercollegian.  They  are  reprinted 
with  the  kind  consent  of  the  editors  of 
these  publications,  and  in  the  hope  that 
th-e  plain  and  simple  views  of  Christian 
duty  which  they  set  forth  may  be  helpful 
to  some  who  are  striving  to  subject  their 
life  wholly  to  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 


CONTENTS 


udg- 


CHAPTER 

I.  Jesus  Christ,  Our  Lord  . 
II.  Religion  not  a  Matter  of  Tempera- 
ment    .... 

III.  The  Place  of  Prayer 

IV.  The  Study  of  the  Bible  . 
V.  A  Christian's  Standards' 

VI.  Christ's  Reversal  of  Human 

ments    .... 
VII.  Always  and  in  All  Things 
VIII.  The  Publicity  of  the  Secret  Life 
IX.  A  Christian's  Friends 
X.  The  Nobility  of  Wrath 
XI.  A  Christian's  Foes  . 
XII.  Christian  Thinking 

XIII.  A  Christian's  Thoughts 

XIV.  The  Place  and  Power  of  Habits 

7 


PAGE 
.        9 


21 
29 
40 
51 

60 
70 

79 
88 

99 
106 
116 
127 

138 


Contents 


CHAPTE 

R. 

PAGE 

XV. 

Christian  Feeling     . 

.  148 

XVI. 

The  Selfishness  of  Sorrow 

.  157 

XVII. 

Christian  Activity  . 

.  166 

XVIII. 

To  Every  Man  His  Work 

.  177 

XIX. 

How    Christ    Ranks    Duties 

and 

Interests       .        .        .        . 

.  188 

XX. 

Christianity  a  Trust 

.  197 

XXI. 

Our  Father  God 

.  206 

XXII. 

The  Holy  Spirit 

.  216 

XXIII. 

Past  and  Future 

.  225 

Christ  and   Life 


JESUS  CHRIST,  OUR  LORD 

We  begin  our  Christian  life  by  aban- 
doning ourselves  to  Christ.  What  we  can 
not  do  for  ourselves  we  find  He  can  do 
for  us.  What  we  can  not  be  in  ourselves 
we  find  He  can  be  in  us.  So  we  agree  to 
let  Him  do  for  us  and  be  in  us  what  we 
can  not  do  for  ourselves,  or  be  in  our- 
selves. The  principle  that  we  thus  rec- 
ognise and  establish  at  the  beginning  of 
our  Christian  life  is  to  be  our  principle 
to  the  end.  Christ  takes  the  place  of 
self.  At  the  beginning  He  destroys  self 
in  us  that  He  may  give  self  back  to  us  in 
Himself.  This  was  His  promise: 
"  Whosoever  would  save  his  life  shall 
lose  it:  and  whosoever  shall  lose  his  life 
for  My  sake  shall  find  it."  This  is  the 
9 


lO  Christ  and  Life 

joy  and  surprise  of  our  new  life  in  Christ. 
He  tells  us  to  give  up  our  life  to  Him. 
We  give  it,  and  lo,  we  receive  it  back 
again  richer,  better,  more  glorious. 

So  it  must  be  with  us  always.  As  we 
begin,  we  must  go  on,  yielding  all  to 
Christ,  recognising  Christ  as  the  owner 
of  all.  And  as  at  the  first,  so  always  we 
shall  discover  that  He  will  give  us  back, 
enriched  and  blessed,  all  that  we  have  ac- 
knowledged as  belonging  not  to  our- 
selves, but  to  Him. 

So  it  is  not  contradictory  to  begin  any 
discussion  of  the  relation  of  our  life  to 
Christ,  with  the  statement  that  we  are 
not  to  have  any  life  of  our  own,  and  that, 
therefore,  we  must  not  have  any  concern 
about  our  life.  We  are  to  recognise, 
with  all  true  Christians,  that  our  life  be- 
longs not  to  ourselves,  but  to  Christ,  in 
whom  our  life  will  belong  to  us  more 
truly  than  ever  before.  This  is  the 
blessed  mystery  of  yielding  everything 
to  Christ, — that  we  find  that  we  have 
received  everything  back  in  Christ.  This 
is  the  helpful  lesson  of  surrender. 


Jesus  Christ,  Our  Lord        ii 

"Laid  on  Thine  altar,  O  my  Lord  divine, 
Accept  this  gift  to-day,  for  Jesus'  sake. 
I  have  no  jewels  to  adorn  Thy  shrine, 

Nor  any  world-famed  sacrifice  to  make; 
But  here  I  bring  within  my  trembling  hand, 
This   will  of  mine,  a   thing  that   seemeth 
small — 
And  Thou  alone,  O  Lord,  canst  understand 
How  when  I  yield  Thee  this  I  yield  mine 
all. 

"  Hidden  therein  Thy  searching  gaze  can  see 
Struggles  of  passion,  visions  of  delight; 
All  that  I  have,  or  am,  or  fain  would  be ; 
Deep  loves,  fond  hopes,  and  longings   in- 
finite ; 
It  hath  been  wet  with  tears  and  dimm'd  with 
sighs, 
Clenched  in  my  grasp  till  beauty  hath  it 
none! 
Now  from  Thy  footstool,  where  it  vanquished 
lies, 
The  prayer   ascendeth — May   Thy   will   be 
done ! 

"Take  it,  O  Father,  ere  my  courage  fail, 
And  merge  it  so  in  Thine  own  will,  that 
e'en 
If  in  some  desperate  hour  my  cries  prevail, 
And  Thou  give  back  my  gift,  it  may  have 
been 


II  Christ  and  Life 

So  changed,  so  purified,  so  fair  have  grown, 
So  one  with  Thee,  so  filled  with  peace  di- 
vine, 
I  may  not  know  or  feel  it  as  mine  own. 

But    gaining    back    my    will    may    find    it 
Thine." 

Our  personal  life  must  rest  firmly  on 
this  recognition  of  Jesus  Christ  as  Lord 
of  life.  Each  one  must  learn  to  say 
truthfully  for  himself,  what  Paul  says 
for  all :  "  I  am  not  my  own.  I  belong 
to  Christ."  We  do  not  know  the  real 
meaning  or  joy  of  life  until  we  have  said 
this.  The  very  reality  of  life  is  that  com- 
munity of  living  with  some  other  life 
whose  influence  has  worked  upon  us  '*  as 
saffron  tingeth  flesh,  blood,  bones,  and 
all,"  which  enables  us  to  say,  *'  I  am 
thine,  beloved,"  and  to  hear  in  return, 
"  Beloved,  I  am  thine."  "  My  beloved  is 
mine,  and  I  am  His,"  is  the  final  secret  of 
all  things.  This  truth  of  the  utter  own- 
ership of  Jesus  is  to  be  the  starting  point 
and  the  goal  of  all  true  life  among 
Christ's  disciples,  young  and  old. 

Two  things  become  clear  at  once  when 


Jesus  Christ,  Our  Lord        13 

Jesus  is  thus  recognised  as  proprietor  of 
our  personal  life.  One  is  that  all  that  we 
have,  life,  time,  talent,  possession,  is 
committed  to  us  as  a  trust  from  Jesus, 
not  to  be  used  selfishly  for  ourselves,  but 
unselfishly  for  Christ  and  for  others. 
The  other  is  that  Jesus  is  our  absolute 
Lord,  our  King,  our  unqualified  Em- 
peror. It  will  be  our  zeal  to  exalt  Him, 
to  claim  for  Him  first  place  in  other  lives, 
and  to  yield  Him  preeminence  in  our 
own. 

Now,  many  blessed  consequences  flow 
from  this  acknowledgment  of  the  own- 
ership of  Jesus.  First  of  all,  Jesus  be- 
comes responsible  for  us,  for  our  place  in 
life,  and  for  our  conduct  in  life.  He  will 
be  concerned  to  see  that  the  life  which  He 
owns  finds  the  place  in  which  He  wishes 
it  to  be.  We  perplex  ourselves  often 
about  the  will  of  God.  "  If  I  only  knew 
what  God  wants  me  to  do !  "  we  exclaim. 
But  if  we  belong  to  Christ  we  may  be 
sure  that  He  is  more  anxious  to  have  us  in 
His  place  for  us  even  than  we  can  be  to 
be  there,  and  that  He  will  get  us  into  that 


14  Christ  and  Life 

place  if  He  can.  And  Jesus  becomes  re- 
sponsible for  our  conduct  also.  What 
we  do  of  evil  or  shame  casts  reproach  on 
Him.  The  very  thought  of  it  makes  a 
shameful  or  evil  act  intolerable.  Jesus 
Himself  in  us  puts  forth  all  His  power 
to  prevent  what  He  disapproves.  Our 
owner  will  cease  to  take  care  of  His  own 
only  when  we  compel  Him  to  do  so  by 
ceasing  to  be  His  own.  Major  Whittle 
used  to  tell  of  a  negro  slave  who  knew 
this  secret  and  was  wont  to  pray  in  the 
hour  of  temptation,  "  Massa,  take  cah ; 
yo'  propehty  is  in  dangeh !  " 

With  the  life  that  has  yielded  all  to 
Jesus,  Jesus  shares  all  his  life.  This  was 
what  Jesus  taught  in  the  parable  of  the 
Good  Shepherd.  "  I  know  Mine  own, 
and  Mine  own  know  Me.  My  sheep  fol- 
low Me,  a  stranger  will  they  not  follow, 
and  I  give  unto  them  eternal  life.  And 
I  lay  down  My  life  for  the  sheep."  He 
asks  no  more  than  He  gives ;  that  is,  all 
of  us  for  Himself,  and  all  of  Himself  to 
us.  Kingsley  has  retold,  as  true,  a  story 
of  two  monks  of  one  of  the  earlier  cen- 


Jesus  Christ,  Our  Lord         15 

turies  who  Uved  together  in  a  cave  for 
years  in  closest  love.  At  last  one  sug- 
gested to  the  other  that  they  should  have 
a  quarrel,  after  the  way  of  the  world. 

"  How?  "  asked  his  friend. 

"  Well,  we'll  take  this  stone  and  lay  it 
down  between  us,  and  I  will  say,  '  This 
stone  is  mine !  '  And  you  can  say,  '  No ; 
this  stone  is  mine !  '  and  so  we  will  quar- 
rel." 

So  they  placed  the  stone  between  them, 
and  the  first  man  said,  "  This  stone  is 
mine."  The  second  man  replied,  hesi- 
tantly, "  I — I  think — the  stone  is  mine." 

"  Well,"  replied  the  man  who  had  pro- 
posed the  quarrel,  "  if  the  stone  is  thine, 
take  it." 

Where  two  lives  belong  to  each  other, 
all  that  each  possesses  is  the  other's. 
When  we  say,  "  O  Christ,  I  am  Thine," 
He  replies,  "  O  friend,  I  am  thine."  Our 
personal  life  is  the  possession  of  Christ 
and  of  all  that  is  Christ's. 

Jesus  is  like  us  in  this  particular,  in  the 
matter  of  His  property — He  likes  to  have 
it  near  Him.     "  Father,"  He  said  in  His 


1 6  Christ  and  Life 

great  prayer,  "  I  will  that  they  also, 
whom  Thou  hast  given  Me,  be  with  Me, 
where  I  am."  This  is  the  only  time 
Jesus  asserted  His  own  will,  and  that  will 
was  that  He  and  His  own  might  never 
be  separated.  "  If  any  man  serve  me," 
He  told  His  disciples,  "  let  him  follow 
me ;  and  where  I  am,  there  shall  also  My 
servant  be."  We  do  not  do  wrong  in 
praying  for  His  presence,  but  we  cannot 
escape  from  His  presence.  Where  we 
go.  He  goes.  Where  He  is,  we  are.  And 
the  secret  of  noble  character  is  in  this : 
"  We  all,  with  unveiled  face  reflecting  as 
a  mirror  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  are  trans- 
formed into  the  same  image  from  glory 
to  glory,  even  as  by  the  Lord  the  Spirit." 
To  associate  with  Him,  as  we  must  if 
we  are  His,  is  to  come  to  resemble  Him. 
Life  becomes  very  simple  and  real 
under  this  conception  of  Christ's  owner- 
ship. The  problems  of  life  cease  to  be 
impersonal  questions  of  principle  or  duty. 
We  do  not  ask  any  more,  "  What  ought  I 
to  do?  "  We  ask,  "  What  would  He  have 
me  do?" 


Jesus  Christ,  Our  Lord        17 

"  Evermore  beside  me  on  my  way 
The  unseen  Christ  doth  move. 
That  I  may  lean  upon  His  arm  and  say, 
Dear  Lord,  dost  Thou  approve?" 

He  is  the  present  Lord  of  life,  and 
waits  to  be  asked  regarding  each  de- 
tail, and  is  ready  with  certain  guid- 
ance and  help.  As  the  "  Act  of 
Faith  "  declares,  ''  I  believe  on  the  name 
of  the  Son  of  God.  Therefore,  I  am  in 
Him,  having  redemption  through  His 
blood  and  Ufe  by  His  Spirit.  And  He  is 
in  me,  and  all  fullness  is  in  Him.  To 
Him  I  belong  by  purchase,  conquest,  and 
self-surrender ;  to  me  He  belongs  for 
all  my  hourly  needs.  There  is  no  diffi- 
culty inward  or  outward  that  He  is  not 
ready  to  meet  in  me  to-day.  The  Lord 
is  my  keeper.     Amen." 

But  it  is  not  alone  our  personal  life  in 
its  relation  to  Christ  that  is  affected  by 
His  lordship  over  us.  Belonging  to 
Christ,  we  sustain  a  new  relationship  to 
all  who  are  Christ's.  Among  all  who 
are  sons  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus,  Paul 
says,   "  There  can  be  neither  Jew  nor 


1 8  Christ  and  Life 

Greek,  there  can  be  neither  bond  nor  free, 
there  can  be  no  male  and  female :  for  ye 
are  all  one  man  in  Christ  Jesus."  Dr. 
Arthur  Mitchell  illustrated  this  truth  of 
the  union  of  a  man  with  his  fellows  be- 
cause united  with  Christ,  when  as  a  boy 
in  Williams  College  he  resigned,  at  his 
conversion,  from  the  secret  society  of 
which  he  was  a  member.  As  a  friend 
wrote,  "  The  tie  was  '  artificial,'  he  said, 
and  weakened  the  broader  one  of  human- 
ity." He  belonged  now  to  Christ,  and 
he  would  not  cheapen  that  tie  with  all 
who  were  Christ's  by  establishing  any 
other  "  artificial  "  tie.  He  was  Christ's 
and  all  of  his  relationships  must  be 
Christ's  also. 

As  Lord  of  our  life  Jesus  must  be  Lord 
of  all  that  is  in  our  life.  Of  course,  He 
must  be  recognised  as  Lord  over  all  that 
appears  to  others  and  by  which  they  form 
their  judgment  of  us.  Over  all  outer 
acts,  habits,  and  words,  Jesus  must  be 
admittedly  and  openly  Master.  And 
surely  over  all  that  is  within  He  must  be 


Jesus  Christ,  Our  Lord        19 

Lord.  That  would  be  a  pitiful  hypocrisy 
which  proclaimed  Him  Lord  over  the 
outer  life  and  kept  the  real  life  within 
from  His  sovereign  control.  Thoughts, 
feelings,  tastes,  imaginations,  longings, 
ideals,  judgments — all  these  are  to  be 
under  the  rule  of  Christ.  Yet  His  bond- 
age is  perfect  liberty  and  life.  Only  as 
we  put  on  His  chains  are  we  free.  He 
delivers  us  from  the  lower  slavery  to  the 
emancipated  life. 

This  is  the  first  truth  of  all,  that  we  are 
not  our  own,  but  Christ's.  The  whole 
life  of  the  Christian  rests  on  this,  and  if 
we  will  not  assent  to  it,  we  can  not  go  on 
to  discover  and  possess  the  treasures  of 
the  life  that  is  deep  and  true.  We  can 
not  truly  rest  anywhere  else ;  for  Christ's 
we  are,  whether  we  admit  it  or  not.  It  is 
simply  a  question  whether  we  will  rec- 
ognise His  ownership  with  love  and  loy- 
alty, or  live  in  insurrection  and  faithless- 
ness. Let  us  begin  by  joyfully  admit- 
ting, as  our  blessed  and  absolute  Lord, 
Him  who  redeemed  us,  not  with  corrupti- 


20  Christ  and  Life 

ble  things,  such  as  silver  and  gold,  but 
with  His  own  precious  blood.  A  rich, 
personal  Christian  life  begins  in  this  con- 
fession, made  in  full  and  sincere  surren- 
der, "  Jesus  Christ,  my  Lord." 


II 


RELIGION    NOT   A    MATTER   OF 

TEMPERAMENT 

There  are  many  people  who  are  of  the 
opinion  that  they  do  not  possess  the  re- 
ligious temperament.  Some  deplore  this. 
Religion,  with  its  life  and  moods,  its  opin- 
ions and  experiences,  is  a  difficult  thing  to 
them.  They  are  discouraged  at  its  diffi- 
culty, and  blame  themselves  for  their  lack 
of  a  spiritual  disposition.  Or  they  excuse 
themselves  for  the  shortcomings  of  which 
they  are  sensible  by  the  reflection  that 
something  is  wanting  in  their  nature. 
There  are  others  who  do  not  deplore  their 
want,  but  rather  exult  in  it.  It  is  a  matter 
of  pride  to  them  that  they  do  not  feel  the 
sense  of  reverence,  which  they  call  su- 
persition,  or  the  sense  of  dependence, 
which  they  call  fear. 

Among  earnest  Christians,  even,  this 

21 


11  Christ  and  Life 

sense  of  subjection  to  the  Umitations  of 
disposition  is  constantly  found.  Says 
one,  "  I  wish  I  could  enjoy  the  peace  and 
blessing  of  the  deeper  Christian  experi- 
ence. I  have  tried  to  gain  them,  but  it 
is  not  my  temperament."  Says  another, 
"  I  try  to  love  the  Saviour,  but  I  am  not 
emotional,  and  my  imagination  will  not 
help  me,  and  I  can  not  feel  that  He  is 
with  me.  I  wish  I  could  experience  the 
thrills  of  devotion  which  some  seem  to 
feel,  but  I  can  not."  "  I  do  my  duty  as 
duty,"  says  a  third,  "  but  that  is  all.  I 
work  for  Christ  as  His  servant,  not  His 
friend." 

And  even  where  the  heart  and  mind 
seem  just  fitted  for  divine  fellowship 
and  the  whole  experience  and  service  of 
religion,  there  are  times  when,  through 
physical  weariness  or  sickness  or  distrac- 
tion, the  religious  disposition  suffers  col- 
lapse, and  the  heart  sighs  with  disap- 
pointment, "  H  only  my  feelings  were 
steady  and  safe  from  distress,  and  could 
rest  always  peacefully  in  Christ !  " 

Now  all  this  habit  of  thought,  so  com- 


Religion  not  Temperamental     23 

mon  and  so  natural,  proceeds  upon  the 
mistaken  supposition  that  religion  is  a 
matter  of  the  disposition.  It  is  not  so. 
Many  a  man  of  spiritual  temperament 
is  in  prison  for  crime,  and  many  a  man 
of  dull  and  sluggish  religious  disposition 
is  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  A  Hindu  so- 
called  '*  prince"  has  been  in  America  re- 
cently, raismg  money  for  the  declared 
purpose  of  providing  wells  for  the 
Pariahs  in  the  Madras  Presidency.  He 
has  received  thousands  of  dollars  from 
devoted  people  who  have  been  impressed 
with  his  noble  religious  earnestness.  Re- 
ligion seemed  so  natural  in  him  as  to 
raise  him  above  suspicion.  But  he  was 
an  unworthy  and  irreligious  man.  A 
temperament  which  made  religious  pro- 
testation easy  to  him  covered  over  what 
was  essentially  irreligious  and  dis- 
honest. 

Perhaps  worship  and  devotion  are  easy 
to  us.  Perhaps  they  are  difficult.  It 
matters  comparatively  little  to  Christ. 
What  He  esteems  is  not  our  disposition, 
but  our  will.     If  the  will  is  vicious  or 


24  Christ  and  Life 

untamed  or  selfish,  smoothness  or  tear- 
fulness of  disposition  are  but  repugnant 
to  Him.  If  the  will  is  true  and  sincere, 
and  bent  toward  His  obedience,  even 
a  rough  and  unemotional  temperament 
will  not  dismay  Him.  It  is  easier  work- 
ing through  the  will  to  alter  the  disposi- 
tion than  working  through  the  disposition 
to  alter  the  will. 

Jesus  lays  His  emphasis,  accordingly, 
elsewhere  than  on  the  temperament: 
"  If  any  man  willeth  to  do  His  will,  he 
shall  know  of  the  teaching  whether  it  be 
of  God."  It  is  not  a  matter  of  natural 
disposition,  but  of  volition,  of  deliberate 
choice.  We  do  not  come  to  faith  by  any 
emotional  fitness  for  it,  but  by  the  will  of 
obedience.  If  faith  resided  in  the  emo- 
tional disposition,  doubt  would  reside 
there  too.  But  Jesus  will  not  allow 
either. 

"  For  Thou  art  so  far  that  I  often  doubt, 
As  I  stretch  forth  my  hands  in  prayer, 
Searching  within  and  looking  without, 
If  Thou  art  anywhere. 


Religion  not  Temperamental     25 

"  But  He  said  that  they  who  did  His  word 
The  truth  of  it  should  know, 
I  will  try  to  do  it.     If  He  be  Lord, 
Perhaps  the  old  spring  will  flow. 

"  Perhaps  the  old  spirit  wind  will  blow 
That  He  promised  to  the'r  prayer; 
And,  doing  Thy  will,  I  yet  may  know 
Thee,  Father,  everywhere." 

So,  also,  in  His  new  commandment, 
Jesus  does  not  hang  everything  upon  the 
inclination  to  love.  He  bids  the  disciples 
to  love.  Love,  like  faith,  is  not  a  caprice 
of  disposition.  It  is  an  attitude  of  will, 
personality  melted  into  service. 

Our  dispositions  cannot  hurt  our  wills. 
"  There  is  no  evil,"  says  Kant,  "  but  the 
evil  will."  But  our  wills  can  hurt  or  help 
our  dispositions.  If  we  will  to  love,  we 
shall  become  loving.  If  we  will  to  treat 
tenderly,  we  shall  become  tender.  If 
our  wills  are  false  and  dishonorable,  no 
matter  how  even  and  fair  our  disposition, 
it  must  become  corroded  by  the  evil 
power  within.  And  if  our  wills  are  right, 
our  passions  and  affections  and  moods 
will  become  right  also. 


26  Christ  and  Life 

It  makes  a  great  deal  of  difference 
whether  our  reHgion  is  a  reHgion  of  the 
disposition  or  a  religion  of  the  will.  If 
the  former,  it  will  have  its  ups  and 
downs;  if  the  latter,  neither  variableness 
nor  shadow  of  turning.  Our  moods 
change  from  day  to  day,  but  the  eternal 
realities  of  the  infinite  love  and  life  are 
the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever. 
And  the  will  of  trust,  of  faith,  of  obedi- 
ence, once  set  toward  them,  is  unalter- 
ably kept  by  the  will  of  God  in  steadfast- 
ness and  serenity. 

Jesus  gives  less  heed,  accordingly,  to 
the  emotional  instincts,  the  tempera- 
mental moods  of  men,  than  to  the  under- 
lying cast  of  character  and  bent  of  will. 
If  these  are  right.  He  who  regenerates 
the  will  can  regenerate  the  disposition 
also.  In  one  of  his  great  sermons  Bush- 
nell  shows  this, — how  "  Christ  Regen- 
erates even  the  Desires,"  the  positive 
cravings,  the  wild  wishes,  the  vagrant 
longings,  new-molding  them  in  their 
spring,  and  configuring  them  inwardly  to 
God,  regenerating  the  soul  at  this  deepest 


Religion  not  Temperamental     27 

and  most  hidden  point  of  character.  This 
is  a  real  renewal  of  the  will. 

No  privilege  of  the  spiritual  life  is 
denied  to  any  of  us  because  of  our  dis- 
position. "  That  good  part  "  was  Mary's, 
not  because  her  temperament  differed 
from  Martha's,  but  because  she  chose  it. 
God's  invitations  are  exceeding  broad, 
as  broad  as  the  choices,  not  as  narrow  as 
the  caprices  of  men.  "  Whosoever  shall 
call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord  shall  be 
saved."  "  Whosoever  Hveth  and  believeth 
in  Me  shall  never  die."  "  Whosoever  be- 
lieveth that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  is  born 
of  God."  "  He  that  is  athirst  let  him 
come ;  and  whosoever  will,  let  him  take 
the  water  of  life  freely."  No  tem- 
peramental limitations  narrow  the  gates 
of  the  kingdom  or  hedge  the  way  to  per- 
fect satisfaction  of  the  deepest  thirst  of 
the  soul. 

And,  finally,  duty  cannot  be  stated  in 
'terms  of  temperamental  religion.  All 
that  that  sort  of  religion  has  to  say  is, 
"I  feel  like  it,"  or,  "I  don't  feel  like 
it."    But  duty  is  above  the  disposition  to 


a8  Christ  and  Life 

do  it.  It  speaks  with  an  authority  that 
will  not  endure  the  whims  of  mood.  It 
has  its  roots  in  the  will  of  God,  and  its 
flower  in  the  will  of  God's  child.  Each 
of  us  can  find  in  it  full  poise  of  spirit  and 
calm  of  heart,  whatever  our  tempera- 
ment may  be. 


Ill 

THE  PLACE  OF  PRAYER 

There  are  some  practices  of  the  Chris- 
tian hfe  which,  all  agree,  are  indispens- 
able. Whenever  anyone  thinks  or  speaks 
of  the  maintenance  of  the  spiritual  life 
these  exercises  stand  out  prominently. 
Prayer  is  one  of  them.  It  is  a  part  of  all 
public  worship.  Its  place  is  always  rec- 
ognised. Yet,  as  a  simple  matter  of  fact, 
it  is  one  of  the  most  neglected  things  in 
the  Church  and  in  the  life  of  Christians. 
There  are  perhaps  not  a  few  of  us  who 
talk  more  about  prayer  than  we  pray. 
This  would  be  less  true  if  we  believed 
more  in  the  reality  of  prayer  and  were 
willing  to  go  to  school  to  learn  how  to 
pray. 

No  one  can  read  the  Bible  without  rec- 
ognising that  the  Bible  regards  prayer  as 
a  real  power.  "  Whatsoever  ye  shall 
ask  in  prayer,  believing,  ye  shall  receive," 
29 


3©  Christ  and  Life 

says  Jesus.  "  The  prayer  of  faith  shall 
save  the  sick,"  says  James,  and  adds, 
"  Elijah  was  a  man  of  like  passions  with 
us,  and  he  prayed  fervently  that  it  might 
not  rain ;  and  it  rained  not  on  the  earth 
for  three  years  and  six  months.  And  he 
prayed  again ;  and  the  heaven  gave  rain, 
and  the  earth  brought  forth  her  fruit." 
James  v:  15,  17,  18.  "And  this  is  the 
boldness  which  we  have  toward  Him," 
wrote  John,  "  that,  if  we  ask  anything  ac- 
cording to  His  will,  He  heareth  us :  and 
if  we  know  that  He  heareth  us  whatso- 
ever we  ask,  we  know  that  we  have  the 
petition  which  we  have  asked  of  Him." 
I  John  V :  14,  15.  "  Prayer  is,"  as  Austin 
Phelps  says,  "  a  power,  has  a  power,  not 
subjective  merely.  So  any  unperverted 
mind  will  conceive  of  the  scriptural  idea 
of  prayer  as  that  of  one  of  the  most 
downright,  sturdy  realities  of  the  uni- 
verse. Right  in  the  heart  of  God's  plan 
of  government  it  is  lodged  as  a  power. 
Amidst  the  conflicts  which  are  going  on 
in  the  evolution  of  that  plan  it  stands  as 
a  power.     Into  all  the  intricacies  of  di- 


The  Place  of  Prayer  3 1 

vine  working  and  the  mysteries  of  divine 
decrees  it  reaches  out  silently  as  a  power. 
In  the  mind  of  God,  we  may  be  assured, 
the  conception  of  prayer  is  no  fiction, 
whatever  men  may  think  of  it." 

Perhaps  when  we  first  became  Chris- 
tians we  felt  this.  God  did  seem  to  be 
listening  then,  and  we  believed  we  were 
in  His  presence.  But  as  we  went  on  the 
glory  died  away,  and  we  seemed  to  be  but 
speaking  aimlessly  into  the  air.  But 
neither  were  we  mistaken  in  our  glad 
new  faith  nor  has  God  changed. 

"  Not  through  Thy  fault,  O  Holy  One,  we  lose 
Thee." 

We  have  simply  failed  to  go  on  from  our 
first  lessons  to  the  new  lessons  required 
for  an  enlarging  life. 

For  prayer  is  as  much  a  matter  of 
schooling  as  Bible  study  or  other  spiritual 
growth.  The  disciples  knew  that  it  was 
not  a  chance  thing,  but  an  education ;  and 
they  came  to  Jesus,  saying,  "  Lord,  teach 
us  to  pray."  We  may  be  sure  both  from 
what  we  know  of  Him,  and  what  we  see 


32  Christ  and  Life 

in  their  later  Hves,  that  Jesus  began  the 
class  and  taught  them  as  He  is  willing 
now  to  teach  us,  if  we  wish  to  learn. 

The  first  thing  is  to  enter  truly  Christ's 
school ;  that  is,  the  school  in  which  He  is 
the  Teacher  and  where  the  scholars  learn 
of  Him.  Look  at  His  life  and  ways  of 
prayer.  He  prayed  without  ceasing.  He 
prepared  for  the  crises  and  duties  of  life 
by  prayer.  The  great  events  of  His  life 
and  the  outgoings  of  power  were  preceded 
by  prayer.  The  people  connected  His 
prayers  with  helpful  influences  and 
brought  little  children  to  Him  "  that  He 
should  lay  His  hands  on  them,  and  pray." 
Matt,  xix:  13.  The  choice  of  the  Twelve 
and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  were  pre- 
ceded by  a  night  of  prayer.  Luke  vi :  12, 
13.  The  transfiguration  was  a  phenome- 
non of  prayer.    Luke  ix :  28-36. 

Such  prayers  of  anticipation  are  com- 
mon. Facing  a  great  crisis,  men  turn  in- 
stinctively to  a  power  without  themselves, 
desiring  help  against  the  hour  of  need. 
When  the  crisis  is  past,  they  lean  once 
more  contentedly  upon  their  own  strength 


The  Place  of  Prayer  23 

and  discernment.  Jesus,  however,  fol- 
lowed the  great  events  of  His  life  by 
prayer,  and  the  sorrows  of  His  life  were 
met  in  prayer. 

Much  of  His  prayer  was  for  others 
than  Himself.  Such  was  His  confidence 
in  His  prayers  that  He  even  gave  thanks 
publicly  for  God's  goodness  in  hearing 
Him  before  any  answer  had  come.  John 
xi:  41,  42.  His  prayers  were  as  simple, 
too,  as  those  of  a  child  (Matt,  xi :  25-27; 
John  xi :  41,  42 ;  Luke  xxiii :  34,  46),  and 
as  submissive,  wholly  free  from  all  self- 
will  and  pride.     Matt,  xi :  26 ;  26 :  39, 

42,  54- 

The  busier  He  was  the  more  earnestly 
He  seems  to  have  given  Himself  to  prayer 
(Mark  i :  35  ;  Luke  iv:  42;  John  vi :  15)  ; 
but  He  was  ready  at  any  time  to  forego 
for  the  sake  of  service  the  privilege  of 
silence  and  communion  which  He  so 
greatly  prized.    Matt,  xiv :  14. 

And  all  this  prayer  life  of  Jesus  was 
so  natural  and  true.  God  was  not  a  God 
afar  off  to  Him.  We  never  hear  Him 
addressing  God  as  "  Almighty  God,"  a 


34'  Christ  and  Life 

phrase  found  in  the  New  Testament  only 
in  the  book  of  The  Revelation.  He  al- 
ways calls  Him  Father,  and  speaks  to 
Him  as  to  one  who  is  near  at  hand.  In 
the  midst  of  a  crowd  He  talks  to  Him  as 
naturally  as  in  solitude.  Matt,  xi :  25,  26; 
John  xii :  27  ;  Luke  xxiii :  46. 

Now  of  course  Jesus  was  such  a  man 
of  prayer,  not  just  to  set  us  an  example 
of  a  life  of  prayer,  but  because  He  was 
Himself.  Yet  He  was  Himself  that  we 
might  be  like  Him,  and  we  can  not  be  in 
His  school  and  not  learn  from  Him  to 
pray  as  He  prayed.  But  looking  at  Him 
will  not  in  itself  accomplish  this  educa- 
tion. We  must  practice  what  we  see  in 
Him,  and  one  of  the  best  places  to  begin 
this  is  in  intercessory  prayer.  "  Simon, 
Simon,"  He  told  Peter,  "  behold,  Satan 
asked  to  have  you,  that  he  might  sift  you 
as  wheat ;  but  I  made  supplication  for 
thee,  that  thy  faith  fail  not."  Jesus  knew 
that  the  evil  one  would  try  the  little  band 
of  apostles.  He  knew  that  Simon  was 
in  danger  of  failing,  and  He  made  His 
knowledge  of  Simon's  peril  and  need  a 


The  Place  of  Prayer  35 

ground  for  loving  prayer  in  his  behalf. 
Now  we  often  perceive  the  need  and  peril 
of  others.  Sometimes  we  make  their 
stumbling  an  occasion  of  sneers  and 
merriment  or  contemptuous  disdain. 
Why  not  rather  make  it  an  occasion  of 
prayer?  We  see  people  displaying  bad 
taste  in  dress  or  unconscious  of  some  un- 
pleasant defect.  To  look  at  these  things 
uncharitably  is  an  offense  against  the 
rights  of  our  own  spirits,  to  which  we 
owe  the  discipline  of  noble  and  generous 
judgment.  "  Unless  we  pray  for  others," 
says  Doctor  Trumbull,  "  we  are  lacking 
in  that  spirit  in  which  alone  we  can  pray 
hopefully  for  ourselves,  and  we  are  liv- 
ing in  neglect  of  a  prime  duty  to  God's 
dear  ones  who  need  and  deserve  our 
prayers." 

It  is  easy  to  be  unconscious  of  the  time 
spent  in  school,  but  it  is  not  possible  to 
be  schooled  without  time,  or  to  live  with- 
out school.  All  life  is  discipline.  And 
the  discipline  of  prayer  takes  time.  It 
will  come  faster  and  more  richly  to  us  as 
we  give  time  consciously  for  it.     Jesus 


36  Christ  and  Life 

gave  time  evenings  (Mark  vi:  45-47), 
mornings  (Mark  i:  35),  and  whole 
nights.  Luke  vi:  12.  Apart  from  His  set 
times,  there  was  no  time  not  filled  with 
the  spirit  and  instant  possibility  of 
prayer.  He  never  drifted  into  the  mood 
nor  went  to  a  place  where  He  could  not 
congenially  face  the  Father  with  open 
eyes  and  an  open  heart.  Is  this  true  with 
us? 

We  shall  doubtless  require  years  to 
learn  to  pray  for  long  seasons.  A  deeper 
knowledge  of  our  own  needs,  a  greater 
sense  of  the  goodness  of  God,  a  broader 
sympathy  with  the  trials  and  the  sorrows 
of  others,  are  necessary  for  this.  But  we 
must  begin  now  with  set  times.  If  you 
have  to  go  through  a  tunnel  to  your  busi- 
ness, or  across  a  ferry,  or  past  a  certain 
place  daily,  associate  these  times  with  a 
word  of  prayer.  Pause  often  in  reading 
or  writing  or  at  your  work,  in  the  office, 
on  the  farm,  in  the  house,  to  look  up  and 
say,  "  Dear  Father."  Begin  the  day  if 
you  can  with  a  quiet  time.  As  Channing 
has  said :    "  The  hour  is  a  still  one.    The 


The  Place  of  Prayer  37 

hurry  and  tumults  of  life  are  not  begun, 
and  we  naturally  share  in  the  tranquillity 
round  us.  Having  for  so  many  hours  lost 
our  hold  on  the  world,  we  can  banish  it 
more  easily  from  the  mind,  and  worship 
with  less  divided  attention.  This  then  is 
a  favorable  time  for  approaching  the  Au- 
thor of  our  being,  for  strengthening  the 
intimacy  of  our  minds  with  Him,  for 
thinking  upon  a  future  life  and  for  seek- 
ing those  spiritual  aids  which  we  need  in 
the  labors  and  temptations  of  every  day. 
In  the  morning  there  is  much  to  feed  the 
spirit  of  devotion  " — the  change  which 
God  has  produced,  the  goodness  which 
He  shows  to  us,  seen  in  our  re-creation  by 
sleep,  the  anticipations  of  a  new  day. 
"  Our  early  prayers  will  help  to  shed  an 
odor  of  piety  through  the  whole  life. 
God,  having  first  occupied,  will  more 
easily  recur  to,  our  mind.  Our  first  step 
will  be  in  the  right  path  and  we  may  hope 
a  happy  issue.  If  our  circumstances  will 
allow  the  privilege,  it  is  a  bad  sign  when 
no  part  of  the  morning  is  spent  in  prayer. 
If  God  finds  no  place  in  our  minds  at  that 


38  Christ  and  Life 

early  and  peaceful  hour  he  will  hardly 
recur  to  us  in  the  tumults  of  life.  Let  a 
part  of  the  morning,  if  possible,  be  set 
apart  to  devotion ;  and  to  this  end  we 
should  fix  the  hour  of  rising,  so  that  we 
may  have  an  early  hour  at  our  disposal. 
Our  piety  is  suspicious  if  we  can  renounce, 
as  too  many  do,  the  pleasures  and  benefits 
of  early  prayer  rather  than  forego  the 
senseless  indulgence  of  unnecessary 
sleep." 

In  this  sweet  and  holy  fellowship  rever- 
ence must  not  destroy  familiarity  nor 
familiarity  diminish  reverence.  He  who 
is  God  is  also  Abba,  Father.  As  I  heard 
a  quaint  Italian  say  reverently  once,  "  My 
Papa  in  heaven."  Who  dare  deny  to  the 
child's  heart  the  child's  name  for  its 
Father?  Above  all  else  our  relations  to 
Him  must  be  real,  tender,  sweet.  It  is 
the  formalism,  the  artificiality,  the  unreal- 
ity, of  our  attitude  toward  Him  that  kills 
most  of  our  prayers.  Is  He  our  Father? 
Then  let  us  speak  to  Him  so.  Let  us 
enter  into  His  loving  confidence  with 
open  and  ingenuous  will. 


The  Place  of  Prayer  39 

"  Lord,  what  a  change  within  us  one  short  hour 
Spent  in  Thy  presence  will  prevail  to  make! 
What  heavy  burdens  from  our  bosoms  take, 
What    parched    grounds    refresh    as    with    a 

shower ! 
We  kneel  and  all  around  us  seems  to  lower; 
We  rise  and  all  the  distant  and  the  near 
Stands    forth    in    sunny    outline,    brave    and 

clear 
We   kneel  how   weak,   we   rise  how   full   of 

power. 
Why  therefore  should  we  do  ourselves  this 

wrong, 
Or  others,  that  we  are  not  always  strong, 
That  we  are  ever  overborne  with  care, 
That  we  should  ever  weak  or  heartless  be, 
Anxious  or  troubled,  when  with  us  is  prayer, 
And  joy  and  strength  and  courage  are  with 

Thee?" 


IV 

THE  STUDY  OF  THE  BIBLE 

It  is  easy  to  forget  that  we  are  not  our 
own,  but  Christ's,  and  to  act  as  though  we 
were  our  own  masters.  We  need  to  culti- 
vate the  habit  of  recognising  Jesus  as 
Lord,  in  every  act  and  judgment.  How 
may  we  do  this?  And  even  when  we 
mean  to  remember  that  we  belong  to 
Christ  and  mean  to  serve  Him  with 
faithfulness,  we  are  dissatisfied  with  our 
own  weakness  and  inefficiency.  How 
may  we  become  efficient  and  strong? 
And  although  we  may  sometimes  be  sen- 
sible that  we  have  some  real  power  in 
doing  Christ's  work,  we  are  conscious 
that  there  is  a  walk  quite  possible  to  us  of 
more  constant  fellowship  and  might. 
How  may  we  come  into  this  for  our- 
selves ? 

These  are  but  a  few  of  the  many  ques- 
40 


The  Study  of  the  Bible        41 

tions  that  arise  in  the  Christian's  personal 
life.  One  good  answer  to  them  all  is 
found  in  the  experience  of  Jeremiah : 
"  Thy  words  were  found,  and  I  did  eat 
them ;  and  Thy  words  were  unto  me  a  joy 
and  the  rejoicing  of  mine  heart;  for  I  am 
called  by  Thy  name,  O  Lord  God  of 
hosts."  The  words  of  God  brought  joy 
and  the  vivid  reminder  of  the  ownership 
of  the  Lord. 

This  is  just  what  Bible  study  does  for 
the  Christian  life.  There  was  nothing 
which  the  statutes  and  word  of  God  did 
for  the  Psalmist,  as  repeatedly  set  forth 
in  the  One  Hundred  and  Nineteenth 
Psalm,  that  our  richer  Bible  will  not  do 
for  us ;  and  in  proportion  as  our  desire 
for  a  true  and  real  life  is  sincere  and  ear- 
nest will  our  study  of  the  Bible  be  zealous 
and  constant.  It  is  God's  written  mes- 
sage to  us,  and  we  can  not  truly  live 
without  it.  As  Jesus  said  to  the  tempter, 
"  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but 
by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the 
mouth  of  God." 

Each  one  of  us  must  study  the  Bible 


42  Christ  and  Life 

for  himself.  No  one  else  can  do  our 
work  for  us.  The  methods  of  others 
will  help  us  to  perfect  our  methods,  but 
each  of  us  must  work  out  for  himself  his 
own  method  of  study.  Every  man  gath- 
ered his  own  manna  in  the  wilderness,  and 
the  good  Shepherd  calleth  each  of  His 
sheep  by  name  separately  and  leadeth 
them  out.  No  man  can  do  another  man's 
studying  for  him.  Each  one  must  be  will- 
ing to  take  time  for  himself;  and  Bible 
study  should  have  our  best  time,  and 
enough  time.  The  fag  ends  of  the  day 
should  not  be  the  only  time  for  it. 
"  Study  the  Bible,"  Mr.  Ruskin  said, 
"  making  it  your  first  daily  business  to 
understand  some  portion  of  it,  and  then 
your  business  the  rest  of  the  day  to  obev 
what  you  do  understand."  "  Every  morn- 
ing," said  Matthew  Hale,  Lord  Chief  Jus- 
tice under  Charles  the  Second,  "  read 
seriously  and  reverently  a  portion  of  the 
Holy  Scripture  and  acquaint  yourself 
with  the  doctrine  thereof." 

If  we  can  get  it,  a  little  morning  time 
should  be  given  to  the  Bible.     The  day 


The  Study  of  the  Bible        43 

should  begin  with  a  word  of  God  that  will 
echo  through  all  its  hours.  And  the  time 
we  give  to  the  Bible  should  be  ample  time 
as  well  as  good  time.  Now  and  then  a 
whole  day  should  be  spent  on  it,  and 
sometimes  a  whole  vacation.  Nothing 
else  is  so  well  worth  while.  As  Canon 
Liddon  said :  "  What  do  we  read  and 
leave  unread?  What  time  do  we  give  to 
the  Bible  ?  No  other  book,  let  us  be  sure, 
can  equally  avail  to  prepare  us  for  that 
which  lies  before  us.  .  .  .  Looking 
back  from  that  world,  how  shall  we  desire 
to  have  made  the  most  of  our  best  guide 
to  it!  How  shall  we  grudge  the  hours 
we  have  wasted  on  any — be  they  thoughts 
or  books  or  teachers,  which  only  belong 
to  the  things  of  time !  "  He  is  a  very 
foolish  Christian  who  spends  so  much 
time  on  newspapers  as  to  leave  none  for 
his  Bible.  It  is  better  to  "  be  a  man  of 
this  one  Book,"  as  John  Wesley  said  he 
wished  to  be,  than  of  all  other  books. 

All  of  us  have  quite  enough  tempta- 
tions to  meet  to  prevent  real  Bible  study 
from  becoming  too  easy.    "  I  do  not  have 


44  Christ  and  Life 

time ;  "  "  I  have  so  much  else  to  do ;  " 
"  It  is  not  interesting;  "  "  I  do  not  know 
how;  "  "  I  can't  get  into  it; — "  these  are 
some  of  the  innumerable  whispers  of  the 
tempter.  We  want  to  go  to  bed  in  the 
evening,  and  do  not  want  to  rise  early. 
We  have  enough  to  do  through  the  day. 
There  is  no  time  left  for  the  Bible !  To 
meet  all  these  difficulties,  the  Bible  study 
that  is  to  feed  and  sustain  our  personal 
Christian  life  must  be  determined  and  un- 
flinching, and  carried  on,  not  superficially 
and  spasmodically,  but  with  persistent 
and  definite  purpose.  We  must  lay  our 
plans  of  study  and  execute  them ;  and  in 
them  we  must  have  that  "  humility  and 
singleness  of  heart "  recommended  by 
John  Locke,  which  makes  us,  as  we  study, 
say,  like  Samuel,  with  open  mind  and 
will,  "  Speak,  Lord ;  for  Thy  servant 
heareth." 

Such  Bible  study  as  the  Christian  must 
do  to  nourish  and  expand  his  personal 
life  will  not  do  itself.  After  time  has 
been  set  aside  for  it,  and  the  right  spirit 
has  been  won,  practical,   effective  plans 


The  Study  of  the  Bible        45 

must  be  pursued.  Mere  indiscriminate, 
miscellaneous,  unordered  dipping  in  here 
and  there  will  not  suffice.  Solid,  sensible 
method  is  required.  Ezekiel's  vision  was 
of  life  within  wheels.  It  combined  the 
spirit  of  life  and  the  ordered  movement 
of  wheels.  It  is  easy  for  us  to  lose  a  great 
deal  through  an  indefensible  prejudice 
against  methods  and  rules  in  our  spiritual 
life. 

One  good  plan  is  to  read  the  Bible 
through  in  course,  frequently.  This  was 
the  method  which  John  Quincy  Adams 
recommended :  "  The  first  and  almost  the 
only  book  deserving  of  universal  attention 
is  the  Bible ;  the  Bible  is  the  book  of  all 
others  to  be  read  at  all  ages  and  in  all 
conditions  of  human  life,  not  to  be  read 
once  or  twice  through,  and  then  laid  aside, 
but  to  be  read  in  small  portions  of  one 
or  two  chapters  every  day,  and  never  to  be 
intermitted,  except  by  some  overruling 
necessity.  I  speak  as  a  man  of  the  world 
to  men  of  the  world,  and  I  say  to  you, 
'  Search  the  Scriptures.'  " 

There  are  eleven  hundred  and  eighty- 


46  Christ  and  Life 

nine  chapters  in  the  Bible.  Reading  two 
chapters  each  day,  save  Sunday,  and 
eleven  on  Sunday,  will  carry  one  through 
the  whole  book  in  a  year,  Reading  the 
Bible  through  over  and  over  again  in  this 
way  lodges  it  unconsciously  in  the  mem- 
ory. And  it  is  worth  while  deliberately 
to  commit  to  memory  large  sections  of  it. 
If  young  Christians  neglect  to  do  this, 
they  will  lose,  and  the  Church  will  lose, 
and  the  world  will  lose.  Nothing  is  so 
powerful  to  purify  and  strengthen  as  the 
Bible  in  the  memory,  "  learned  by  heart," 
as  our  good  phrase  puts  it.  Mr.  Ruskin 
has  left  on  record  his  loving  gratitude  to 
his  mother  for  having  compelled  him  to 
learn  the  whole  body  of  the  fine  old 
Scotch  paraphrases  of  the  Psalms.  Many 
other  men  look  back  with  deepest  love 
and  longing  to  Sunday  evenings  long  ago, 
when,  at  a  father's  or  a  mother's  knee. 
they  recited  the  Scriptures  they  had  been 
set  to  learn.  It  is  a  blessed  thing  when 
that  can  be  said  of  our  homes  which  Paul 
said  of  the  home  of  Timothy,  who  had 
been  taught  his  Bible  "  from  a  babe." 


The  Study  of  the  Bible        47 

A  yet  simpler  form  of  Bible  study  is 
to  memorize  verses  and  meditate  upon 
them.  We  have  scores  of  spare  moments 
during  the  day,  while  dressing  and  un- 
dressing, going  from  place  to  place,  to  and 
from  meals,  passing  from  duty  to  duty, 
when  our  minds  as  a  rule  are  adrift,  no- 
where. Fill  these  times  with  verses  from 
the  Bible.  Carry  a  pocket  Testament 
or  cut  up  an  old  Bible  and  carry  pieces  in 
your  pocket.  Have  a  Silent  Comforter 
or  other  Scripture  roll  in  your  bedroom. 
Not  every  Bible  verse  will  have  a  mes- 
sage for  you,  perhaps,  but  there  is  not 
one  without  some  meaning.  Even  the 
lists  of  names  in  Chronicles  one  old  lady 
learned  once,  because  she  "  would  feel 
dreadfully  ashamed  to  meet  those  people 
in  heaven  and  not  know  their  names." 
Mrs.  Slosson  tells  in  "  Seven  Dreamers  " 
of  another  old  lady  whose  favorite  verse 
was,  "  At  Michmash  he  hath  laid  up  his 
carriages."  The  Bible  is  the  richest,  full- 
est book  in  the  world,  and  will  fit  even 
the  most  peculiar  mind. 

But  neither  of  these  plans  supersedes 


48  Christ  and  Life 

the  necessity  of  studying  the  Bible  by 
books.  The  Bible  is  a  little  library  of 
sixty-six  books,  with  many  writers,  writ- 
ten in  different  lands  and  times.  All  the 
books  can  best  be  understood  by  under- 
standing each  book.  We  need  to  study 
the  questions  which  Bible  scholars  deal 
with  under  the  head  of  "  Introduction." 
Who  wrote  this  book?  When?  Why? 
What  is  he  teaching?  What  is  his  special 
message  and  purpose?  These  inquiries 
will  help  to  reveal  what  the  booTc  has  to 
say  to  our  own  hearts  and  to  this  present 
world,  because  we  shall  have  learned 
what  the  author  had  to  say  to  the  hearts 
and  the  world  of  his  time.  Doctor 
Broadus  used  to  advise  the  study  in  this 
way,  first  of  the  Gospels,  then  of  The 
Acts,  Romans,  Timothy,  Psalms,  Deu- 
teronomy, and  Isaiah. 

Another  profitable  method  of  study  is 
by  subjects,  either  by  truths,  like  faith, 
the  love  of  God,  obedience,  prayer,  the 
Lord's  return ;  or  by  characters.  Christ's 
comes  first.  Make  a  list  of  all  the  beauti- 
ful things  you  can  see  in  Him,  of  all  the 
wonderful  things  He  said  about  Himself. 


The  Study  of  the  Bible        49 

See  if  you  can  find  anything  that  He  said 
about  Himself  that  was  not  lowly.  Study 
His  example  as  a  man  of  prayer,  as  a  stu- 
dent of  His  Bible,  as  a  revelation  of 
what  God  would  have  each  of  us  to  be. 
What  was  Christ  that  I  am  not,  and  that 
I  ought  to  be?  What  am  I  that  Christ 
was  not,  and  that  I  ought  not  to  be? 
Study  Paul  as  a  teacher,  as  a  personal 
worker,  as  a  friend,  as  a.  correspondent, 
as  a  missionary.  Ferret  out  the  noble 
lives  and  characters  of  Andrew,  Philip, 
Barnabas,  John,  Timothy,  Apollos, 
Aquila,  and  Priscilla.  These  should  be 
our  friends  and  companions,  even  now. 
It  is  for  our  sakes  that  their  lives  are  re- 
corded in  the  Book  that  can  not  be  de- 
stroyed. 

But  no  method  of  study  can  accomplish 
its  true  purpose  for  us  that  does  not  keep 
uppermost  always  the  thought  of  the 
Bible  as  God's  personal  message  to  our 
own  heart  and  will.  Each  truth  that  we 
perceive  is  a  truth  to  be  incorporated  in 
character.  What  we  learn,  we  must  be. 
Knowledge  about  the  Bible  is  poor  and 
imperfect  if  it  does  not  bear  fruit  in  a 


5©  Christ  and  Life 

life  of  loving,  joyful  service  of  man  and 
of  the  Son  of  man. 

Our  very  Bible  study,  accordingly, 
must  be  a  ministry.  What  we  get,  we 
must  give.  Meditating  over  what  we 
read,  until  it  becomes  a  part  of  us,  we 
are  to  pass  it  on  from  us  to  others.  "  The 
man  who  has  a  faith,"  says  Mazzini,  "  is 
bound  to  witness  for  it  every  hour  of  the 
day."  Make  your  Bible  study  and  what 
you  are  learning  in  it  the  subject  of  your 
conversation,  and  speak  of  the  beauty  of 
the  Saviour  you  are  coming  increasingly 
to  admire  and  adore. 

And  last,  be  often  alone  with  your 
Bible.  The  Saviour  will  speak  sweetly 
to  you  from  it,  if  you  will  give  Him  time 
for  confidence.  The  Bible,  too,  will  do 
something  for  you  in  these  times.  As 
Izaak  Walton  quaintly  says: — 

"  Every  hour 
I  read  you  kills  a  sin 
Or  lets  a  virtue  in 
To  fight  against  it." 

And  in  the  Psalmist's  words, 

"  Great  peace  have  they  which  love  Thy  law ; 
And  they  have  none  occasion  of  stumbling." 


V 

A  CHRISTIAN'S   STANDARDS 

Both  Christians  and  those  who  are  not 
Christians  fall  easily  into  the  fallacy  of 
assuming  that  what  they  think  right  is 
right.  I  once  overheard  a  young  man 
and  a  young  woman  on  a  railroad  train 
discussing  the  question  of  bicycle  riding 
on  Sunday.  The  young  woman  had  taken 
the  higher  ground  and  was  getting  much 
the  better  of  the  argument.  At  last  the 
young  man  tried  to  dismiss  the  question 
by  saying,  "  Well,  of  course,  if  you  think 
it  is  wrong,  it  would  be  wrong  for  you; 
but  I  can't  see  any  harm  in  it,  and  if  I 
can't,  it  isn't  wrong  for  me  to  do  it." 
Many  young  men  justify  themselves  in 
betting  or  drinking  or  smoking,  on  the 
same  ground. 

But  all  this  merely  indicates  that  think- 
ing so  or  not  thinking  so  settles  noth- 
51 


52  Christ  and  Life 

ing.  Something  objective,  outside  our 
whim  and  caprice,  must  constitute  the 
settling  thing.  The  fact  that  a  man  thinks 
Themistocles  was  ostracized  in  470  b.  c. 
is  of  no  consequence,  no  matter  how  hard 
and  positively  he  thinks  so.  He  was 
ostracised  in  471  b.  c,  and  no  amount  of 
thinking  or  not  thinking  can  affect  the 
matter.  And  so  in  other  things.  A  rail- 
road signalman  sets  red  lights.  Thinking 
them  yellow  or  green  does  not  make  them 
so.  The  company  would  laugh  at  an 
engineer  who  thought  that  his  idea  about 
it  and  not  the  thing  itself  was  the  con- 
clusive element,  and  would  dismiss  him 
right  promptly. 

Let  us  think,  however,  of  conduct  and 
morals.  It  is  equally  true  there  that  a 
man's  appeal  to  his  standards  settles  noth- 
ing. The  question  is,  are  his  standards 
right?  No  man  has  a  right  to  live  be- 
low his  standards ;  moreover,  he  may  not 
have  a  right  to  live  as  low  as  his  stand- 
ards. A  man's  thoughts  about  what  he 
can  freely  do  may  enable  him  to  do  what 
he  has  no  right  whatever  to  descend  to. 


A  Christian's  Standards        ^2 

He  may  think  it  is  right  for  him  to  do 
wrong.  What  is  right  or  wrong,  true  or 
false,  is  right  or  wrong,  true  or  false,  ir- 
respective of  what  you  and  I  think  about 
it. 

You  may  say  that  Paul  says,  "  To  him 
that  thinketh  anything  to  be  unclean^  to 
him  it  is  unclean."  But  he  says  "  un- 
clean," not  "  clean."  It  is  negative,  not 
positive.  He  declares,  not  that  it  is  right 
for  any  man  to  do  whatever  he  thinks 
right,  but  that  it  is  wrong  for  him  to  do 
what  he  thinks  is  wrong.  It  is  a  counsel 
of  caution — if  there  is  doubt  about  it, 
don't  do  it.  If  you  think  a  thing  is  un- 
clean, you  may  not  touch  it,  bui  it  does 
not  follow  that  if  you  think  it  is  clean 
you  may.  "  The  hour  cometh,"  said  Jesus 
to  His  disciples,  "  that  whosoever  killeth 
you  shall  think  that  he  offereth  service 
unto  God."  Is  murder  therefore  justi- 
fiable? 

Well,  but  men  ask,  "  Can  anyone  do 
more  than  act  conscientiously?  "  Yes,  he 
can  make  sure  that  his  moral  judgments 
are  right.     Conscience  only  tells  us  that 


54  Christ  and  Life 

there  is  right  and  wrong.  It  does  not 
tell  us  what  is  right  and  what  wrong. 
Our  moral  judgment  tells  us  that,  and  it 
is  capable  of  education  and  enlightenment, 
and  of  discovering  those  eternal  objective 
standards  of  right  and  wrong  which  exist 
in  God  and  are  borne  in  upon  our  mind 
and  will  in  the  gospel.  Our  business  as 
Christians  is  not  only  to  do  what  we  be- 
lieve to  be  right  but  to  be  sure  that  our 
beliefs  conform  to  the  eternal  law  of 
righteousness  in  God. 

We  who  know  or  can  know  what  this 
is  are  to  be  judged  and  held  responsible 
according  to  our  conformity  to  these  ob- 
jective, unchangeable  standards,  not  ac- 
cording to  our  thoughts  about  them. 
Where  men  do  not  know  and  can  not 
know  that  polygamy  is  wrong,  God  will 
judge  them  accordingly;  but  he  will  not 
judge  us  in  the  same  way  no  matter  how 
conscientiously  we  might  believe  polyg- 
amy to  be  right.  And  we  are  boutjd  to 
find  out  these  standards  of  God.  We  can 
not  say,  "  We  did  not  know  them.  We 
iived  according  to  our  standards."     In 


A  Christian's  Standards         55 

this  country  ignorance  of  the  law  is  no 
excuse.  If  a  man  kills  game  out  of  sea- 
son in  ignorance,  or  commits  arson  and 
pleads  that  he  did  not  know  that  it  was 
illegal  to  burn  a  man's  house  down,  the 
law  does  not  let  him  off.  The  laws  of  the 
land  are  published,  and  all  men  are  sup- 
posed to  know  them.  This  was  God's 
ordinance  in  Israel.  "  If  any  one  sin  and 
do  any  of  the  things  which  the  Lord  hath 
commanded  not  to  be  done;  though  he 
knew  it  not,  yet  is  he  guilty,  and  shall 
bear  his  iniquity."  You  may  think  a  fire 
will  not  burn,  but  put  your  hand  in  it  and 
your  thought  about  it  will  not  save  you 
a  blistered  finger.  It  is  so  in  morals.  God 
has  His  laws ;  if  we  break  them,  they  are 
broken  and  we  must  reap  the  conse- 
quences. Those  laws  are  there,  solid, 
eternal,  untouched  by  any  of  our  vagaries, 
shufflings,  or  argumentations. 

Every  one  of  us  needs  to  remember 
this.  The  Christian  life  that  forgets  it 
will  soon  show  the  weakening  effects  of 
its  forgetfulness.  To  keep  life  true  and 
clean  we  need  its  fiber  and  reliabilities, 


56  Christ  and  Life 

its  veracities,  as  Carlyle  would  say.  These 
are  in  the  will  of  our  holy  God,  and  not 
in  our  human  moods  and  caprices. 

Some  men's  standards  are  shaped  by 
their  own  appetites.  Some  men  are  weak 
and  of  flabby  judgment.  Some  are  mor- 
ally color-blind.  "  The  lamp  of  thy  body 
is  thine  eye ;  when  thine  eye  is  single, 
thy  whole  body  also  is  full  of  light ;  but 
when  it  is  evil,  thy  body  also  is  full  of 
darkness.  Look  therefore  whether  the 
light  that  is  in  thee  be  not  darkness." 
Luke  xi:  34,  35. 

Doctor  Trumbull  has  told  in  one  of  his 
sermons  of  a  most  remarkable  case  of 
moral  color-blindness.  "  The  Rev.  Dr. 
Nathan  Strong,  pastor  of  my  old  home 
church  in  Hartford,  was,  as  I  have  been 
told,  the  owner  of  a  distillery,  while  in 
the  active  pastorate.  Not  being  so  suc- 
cessful a  distiller  as  he  was  a  pastor,  he 
failed  in  the  rum  business,  and  a  civil 
judgment  was  rendered  against  him  ac- 
cordingly. To  evade  the  sheriff's  execu- 
tion, he  was  compelled  to  shut  himself  in 
the  parsonage  week  days  for  a  series  of 


A  Christian's  Standards         57 

weeks;  but  when  Sundays  came,  he 
moved  out  in  solemn  dignity,  with  his 
cocked  hat  and  knee  breeches,  and  passed 
across  to  the  church  to  preach  the  gospel 
as  usual.  No  civil  process  would  disturb 
him  on  Sundays.  His  conscience  does  not 
seem  to  have  disturbed  him,  on  the  dis- 
tillery question,  any  day  of  the  week. 
There  are  churches  still  standing,"  says 
Doctor  Trumbull,  "  here  in  New  England, 
which  were  built  with  the  proceeds  of 
lotteries  duly  authorised  for  that  sacred 
purpose." 

"  If  our  consciences,"  he  adds,  "  work 
differently  from  the  consciences  of  our 
fathers  on  these  points,  it  is  because  our 
moral  eyesight  has  been  trained  to  finer 
distinctions  in  color,  under  the  treatment 
of  those  whom  God  has  set  to  be  spiritual 
oculists."  Paul  found  in  his  later  life 
how  wrong  he  had  been  in  his  earlier 
course,  and  bitterly  condemned  himself. 
"  I  verily  thought  with  myself  [at  that 
time],"  he  said  later,  "that  I  ought  to 
do  many  things  contrary  to  the  name  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth." 


58  Christ  and  Life 

This  may  sound  hard.  We  like  to  think 
of  the  sweet  and  gentle  side  of  the  Chris- 
tian life.  But  this  is  alone  healthful  and 
safe.  The  loving  grace  of  God  is  not 
meant  to  conceal  the  holy  will  of  God. 
The  Christian  life  is  not  sweet  feeling 
only.  It  is  iron  righteousness.  To  tell 
people  to  go  ahead  and  do  whatever  cor- 
responds to  their  standards,  without  tak- 
ing pains  to  see  whether  their  standards 
are  right,  is  fatal.  It  will  not  save  a  man 
who  has  done  the  fatal  thing  to  plead  that 
his  moral  sight  was  defective,  if  he  had 
ample  opportunity  to  correct  that  defect. 
The  color-blindness  of  the  engineer  who 
has  mistaken  a  red  danger  signal  for  a 
yellow  safety  light,  and  runs  his  train- 
load  of  passengers  into  an  abyss,  will  not 
save  the  lives  of  the  poor  creatures  hurled 
to  their  doom,  or  his  own  life,  either. 

So  in  morals,  too.  A  man  may  lie, 
thinking  a  lie  is  sometimes  justifiable,  but 
he  is  a  liar  nevertheless ;  and,  unfortu- 
nately, the  book  of  The  Revelation  makes 
no  distinction  between  justifiable  lies  and 
the  other  kind,  but  declares  unequivocally, 


A  Christian's  Standards        59 

"  But  for  ...   all  liars,  their  part  shall 
be  in  the  lake  that  burneth." 

No,  there  are  objective  standards  in 
God,  firm  and  absolute,  and  the  strong 
and  admirable  life  is  the  life  that  is  keen 
to  respond  to  this,  that  sees  the  new  light 
which  shines  on  the  duties  of  a  Christian 
seeking  for  it,  that  girds  itself  for  the 
highest  and  most  exacting  attainment, 
and  draws  conduct  resolutely  up  to  it, 
that  does  not  say,  "  I  would  rather ;  " 
"  That  is  so  hard."  The  fact  that  other 
men  do  this  or  do  that  proves  nothing 
whatever  as  to  my  course.  He  is  the 
splendid  man  who  sees  the  high  and  stain- 
less will  of  God  for  human  life,  who 
stands  serene  and  immovable  on  the  rock 
of  Christ's  clear  revelation  of  the  right, 
and  who  wills  to  do  the  thing  that  is 
eternally  true. 


vr 

CHRIST'S  REVERSAL  OF  HUMAN 
JUDGMENTS 

Some  of  the  judgments  of  men  Jesus 
came  to  reaffirm  and  complete.  He  said 
He  had  come,  not  to  destroy  the  law  and 
the  prophets,  but  to  fulfil.  He  removed 
none  of  the  moral  ordinances  of  God.  He 
poured  fresh  vital  power  into  them. 
Herein  lay  one  surprise  and  service  of 
His  coming.  But  some  judgments  of  men 
He  came  to  annul  and  reverse.  In  this 
lay  another  surprise  and  service  of  His 
coming.  Both  Jesus'  affirmations  of  the 
judgments  of  God  and  His  reversals  of 
the  judgments  of  men  entered  into  His 
mission. 

Christ's  collisions  with  human  judg- 
ments gave  infinite  zest  and  variety  to  His 
work.  They  lifted  it  above  all  monotone. 
He  did  not  come  to  reduce  everything 
60 


Reversal  of  Human  Judgments      6i 

to  a  dead  level.  The  prophecy  that  His 
era  would  be  the  day  of  the  straightened 
paths  and  filled  valleys  and  the  humbled 
hills  was  not  more  a  prophecy  that  a 
smooth  way  should  be  opened  than  a  dec- 
laration of  the  overturning  mission  of 
Jesus.  He  would  make  valleys  of  men's 
hills,  and  hills  of  men's  valleys.  This  was 
His  mother's  song  of  gladness  to  God : 

"  He  hath  put  down  princes  from  their  thrones, 
And  hath  exalted  them  of  low  degree. 
The  hungry  He  hath  filled  with  good  things, 
And  the  rich  He  hath  sent  empty  away." 

Jesus  threw  Himself  athwart  the  current 
sentiments  and  manners  of  men.  All  who 
met  Him  testified  that  He  was  not  like 
other  men.  His  speech  was  not  their 
speech.  His  acts  were  not  their  acts.  His 
judgments  were  not  their  judgments. 

It  was  a  startling  thing  when  this 
young  Galilean  peasant  rose  up  fearlessly 
to  shatter  the  conventional  assumptions 
and  moral  subterfuges  of  His  day.  This 
was  the  burden  of  His  great  discourse 
which  we  call  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 


62  Christ  and  Life 

"  You  interpret  the  command  not  to  kill 
as  satisfied  if  you  have  not  actually  taken 
life.  But  I  call  wrong  anger  and  contempt 
murderous,  and  liable  to  judgment  as 
such.  You  regard  a  man  as  innocent  of 
adultery  who  has  not  been  guilty  of  the 
act.  I  hold  the  thought  of  it  criminal.  You 
are  careful  of  veracity  in  oaths,  but  I  say, 
Swear  no  oaths,  but  be  true  always.  You 
believe  in  the  law  of  retaliation.  I  de- 
nounce it.  You  enjoin  love  of  friend  and 
hate  of  foe.  I  scorn  such  atheism.  God's 
sons  must  bear  their  Father's  generous 
heart.  You  holy  people  are  adepts  at 
mock  humility  and  public  piety.  But 
thou,  when  thou  fastest,  anoint  thy 
head  and  wash  thy  face,  that  thou  be 
not  seen  of  men  to  fast.  You  pile  up 
wealth  on  earth.  The  moth  and  rust  cor- 
rupt it,  and  the  thieves  steal  it.  Cease 
such  folly,  and  be  rich  in  God."  Is  it 
strange  that,  when  He  ended  these  revo- 
lutionary words,  "  the  multitudes  were 
astonished  at  His  teaching ;  for  He  taught 
them  as  one  having  authority,  and  not  as 
their  scribes  ?  "     And   was  it  not  most 


Reversal  of  Human  Judgments     63 

natural,  as  He  went  on  with  His  mission, 
assailing  tradition  after  tradition,  demol- 
ishing hypocrisy  after  hypocrisy,  and  nul-? 
lifying  judgment  after  judgment,  that 
men  of  evil  hearts  should  be  angered,  and 
that,  forced  to  choose  between  His  death 
and  His  views,  they  should  prefer  killing 
Jesus  on  a  cross  to  killing  the  sin  in  their 
own  hearts,  that  were  shut  against  Him 
and  His  truth?  For  the  reversed  judg- 
ments of  Jesus  demand  reversed  wills  in 
men. 

Jesus  once  answered  the  Pharisees, 
when  they  scoffed  at  Him  for  His  condem- 
nation of  mammon  service,  by  declaring, 
"  That  which  is  exalted  among  men  is  an 
abomination  in  the  sight  of  God."  How 
could  He  do  otherwise,  therefore,  as  the 
Son  of  God,  who  knew  His  Father's  mind 
than  overturn  the  views  of  men?  This 
was  what  He  set  Himself  to  do  among 
His  disciples.  First  of  all  He  reversed 
their  judgments  as  to  the  comparative 
importance  of  inner  and  outer.  He  re- 
peatedly condemned  before  them  the 
settled  habit  of  mind  of  the  Pharisees, 


64  Christ  and  Life 

who  cleansed  the  outside  of  the  cup  and 
platter,  while  their  inward  part  was  full 
of  extortion  and  wickedness,  and  who 
lodged  the  guilt  of  sin  in  the  overt  act 
and  condoned  the  covert  lust.  And  He 
pressed  on  His  disciples,  when  alone,  the 
supreme  importance  of  pure  fountains 
within,  assuring  them  that  the  overflow- 
ing streams  would  care  for  themselves. 
Men  laid  the  emphasis  on  conduct  or  cere- 
mony.   Jesus  laid  it  on  character. 

Likewise  He  set  cause  above  effect. 
Men  do  not.  They  are  content  to  keep 
themselves  clean  of  gross  acts,  though 
heedless  of  the  inner  shapings  of  taste 
or  evil,  which  mean  gross  acts  in  time. 
In  social  and  political  life  we  are  ever 
dealing  with  the  consequences  of  forces, 
and  overlooking  the  forces  themselves. 
We  do  this  with  poverty,  with  intemper- 
ance, with  political  abuses.  Reformers  try 
to  abolish  the  evil  by  attacking  its  mani- 
festations, but  the  evil  is  deeper  than  the 
phenomena  in  which  it  expresses  itself. 
Distributing  food  to  the  needy,  limiting 
liquor  licenses,   introducing  civil-service 


Reversal  of  Human  Judgments     65 

reform,  are  proper  procedures,  but  they 
do  not  go  deep  enough.  Jesus  leaped  past 
all  these  things.  He  said  nothing  about 
slavery,  about  the  inferiority  of  woman, 
about  intemperance,  about  gambling;  but 
He  did  set  up  principles  which  went 
straight  to  the  causes  of  these  evils,  and 
there  can  be  no  ownership  of  man,  no 
abuse  of  woman,  no  prostitution  of  life, 
no  dishonesty  of  gain,  where  men  obey 
Him.  Jesus'  influence  has  been  the 
mightiest  reformatory  influence  in  the 
world,  because  He  reversed  the  judg- 
ments of  men  as  to  the  method  of  reform. 
And  He  explicitly  contradicted  the 
judgments  of  men  as  to  the  comparative 
importance  of  higher  and  lower.  "  The 
kings  of  the  Gentiles  exercise  lordship 
over  them,  and  they  that  exercise  author- 
ity upon  them  are  called  benefactors.  But 
ye  shall  not  be  so,  but  he  that  is  greatest 
am.ong  you,  let  him  be  as  the  younger; 
and  he  that  is  chief,  as  he  that  doth 
serve.  For  whether  is  greater,  he  that 
sitteth  at  meat,  or  he  that  serveth?  is 
not  he  that  sitteth  at  meat?     But  I  am 


66  Christ  and  Life 

among  you  as  he  that  serveth."  Ever 
since  Jesus  said  this,  His  standard  of 
measurement  has  been  gaining  accept- 
ance in  the  world,  and  the  lowly  man  is 
great  because  Christ  has  overturned  the 
judgments  of  men  in  this  regard. 

Jesus  found  a  world  that  did  not  believe 
in  human  equality.  He  has  been  destroy- 
ing its  disbelief.  He  found  a  world  that 
did  not  believe  in  human  unity.  He  has 
been  welding  the  race  into  one.  He  found 
a  world  that  despised  toil.  "  A  mechanic's 
occupation  is  degrading,"  said  Cicero. 
"  A  workshop  is  incompatible  with  any- 
thing noble."  He  took  up  a  trade,  and 
worked  at  a  bench.  Aristotle  character- 
ised women  as  beings  of  a  lower  kind, 
while  Plato  made  it  a  mark  of  civil  dis- 
organisation that  women  should  be  on  an 
equality  with  their  husbands.  Jesus  drew 
no  distinction  between  man  and  woman, 
and  has  deliberately  reversed  human 
judgment  as  to  the  subserviency  of 
woman.  He  entered  a  world  that  had  lost 
faith  in  goodness.  "  All  things,"  wrote 
Seneca,  "  are  full  of  iniquity  and  vice." 


Reversal  of  Human  Judgments     67 

Jesus  refused  to  abandon  faith  in  man, 
even  when  man  was  doing  his  utmost  to 
discredit  such  faith.  He  reversed  man's 
judgment  of  his  own  failure.  He  found  a 
world  that  had  lost  joy  in  the  present  life, 
and  abandoned  hope  for  the  life  to  come. 
"  The  aim  of  all  philosophy,"  said  Seneca, 
"  is  to  despise  life."  "  What  folly  it  is 
to  renew  life  after  death ! "  exclaimed 
Pliny.  "  You  rob  me  of  man's  greatest 
good — death."  Jesus  smote  such  pessi- 
mism and  despair  with  the  jubilant  radi- 
ance of  His  own  glorious  life  and  love.  In 
all  these  things  He  affronted  and  reversed 
the  judgments  of  men.  He  was  the  first 
of  the  men  "  who  have  turned  the  world 
upside  down."  But  the  whole  revolution 
is  His. 

Sometimes  Jesus  reversed  human  judg- 
ments by  the  mere  silent  influence  of  His 
presence,  as  when  the  woman  taken  in  sin 
was  brought  to  Him,  and  He  stooped 
down  and  wrote  on  the  sand.  The  scribes 
and  Pharisees  had  thought  it  would  be  a 
fine  thing  to  drag  the  woman  into  Jesus' 
presence  with  their  loathsome  tale.     He 


68  Christ  and  Life 

spoke  but  one  general  word,  and  stooped 
down  again  and  wrote,  and  then  the  affair 
ceased  to  appear  such  a  fine  thing  to  the 
men  whom  the  presence  of  Jesus  con- 
victed of  shame  and  sin  and  hypocrisy. 
There  is  a  world  of  revolutionary  power 
still  in  the  presence  of  Jesus.  A  thousand 
things  shrivel  into  their  true  paltriness 
when  the  blaze  of  His  countenance  falls 
on  them.  Take  your  judgments  there, 
and  see  how  many  of  them  He  will  re- 
verse by  the  mere  influence  of  His  silence 
and  His  sinless  purity. 

For  Christ  is  full  still  of  reversing 
power.  He  is  not  dead.  He  ever  liveth, 
and  in  each  human  life,  and  in  the  life  of 
humanity,  He  is  working  His  overturn- 
ings.  All  righteousness  is  the  product 
of  His  influence.  He  is  the  source  of  all 
scorn  of  the  sins  the  world  loves,  and  of 
all  love  of  the  virtues  the  world  hates. 
And  that  profound  change  which  the  New 
Testament  calls  repentance,  or  change  of 
mind,  is  merely  the  acceptance  of  the  re- 
versals of  Jesus.  We  alter  our  judgments 
to  correspond  with  His.     We  transpose 


Reversal  of  Human  Judgments     69 

our  antipodes  and  nadir.  The  "  despised 
and  rejected  of  men  "  becomes  our  adored 
sovereign  and  Lord,  and,  like  Paul,  we 
preach  the  faith  that  once  we  destroyed. 
We  exchange  the  far  country  for  our 
Father's  house,  and  the  judgments  of  that 
evil  land  yield  to  the  contrary  judgments 
of  Him  who  brought  us  thence  and  hither. 


VII 

ALWAYS   AND   IN   ALL   THINGS 

Of  the  events  of  the  last  Monday  of 
our  Lord's  Hfe  two  only  are  recorded 
for  us,  the  withering  of  the  fig-tree  and 
the  cleansing  of  the  temple.  Doubtless 
there  was  much  else,  both  of  act  and  of 
word,  on  the  part  of  our  Saviour  which 
was  of  greatest  significance,  but  these  two 
things  alone  are  saved  to  the  Church. 
And  yet  these  two  are  enough,  for  they 
contain  two  great  moral  principles  which 
sweep  up  and  down  and  to  and  fro  across 
the  whole  life  of  man. 

These  two  principles  are  embodied  in 
the  very  features  of  Jesus'  conduct  which 
seem  most  arbitrary.  It  is  often  so,  and 
must  be  so.  The  standards  of  Christ's 
life  and  action  were  not  the  standards  of 
ours.  They  sharply  collided  with  ours. 
When  our  eyes  are  opened  we  perceive 
70. 


Always  and  In  All  Things      71 

that  ours  are  wrong,  and  His  right;  but 
until  then  it  is  tolerably  certain  that  just 
those  elements  in  His  doctrine  or  behavior 
which  are  most  characteristic,  most  illu- 
minating, most  veracious,  will  give  us 
most  trouble  and  seem  most  strange  to  us. 
He  withered  and  slew  a  fig-tree  that 
was  bearing  no  figs  at  a  season  when 
figs  were  not  to  be  expected.  The  spirit 
of  cavilling  has  denounced  this  act.  The 
fig-tree,  men  say,  was  but  acting  accord- 
ing to  its  nature,  in  bearing  no  fruit 
in  the  spring.  If  Jesus'  conduct  had  been 
only  the  outcome  of  personal  hunger 
and  disappointment,  it  would  have  been 
unworthy,  but  no  miracle  of  His  ever  had 
a  simple  personal  import.  In  the  Temp- 
tation He  refused  to  work  any  miracle 
for  personal  ends ;  and  at  the  last,  when 
He  might  have  summoned  ten  legions  of 
angels.  He  quietly  submitted  to  the  death 
of  the  cross  and  the  taunts  of  the  people, 
"  He  saved  others,  Himself  He  can  not 
save."  And  in  this  case  the  miracle  was 
not  wrought  out  of  pique  and  petulance. 
Such  thoughts  never  entered  the  mind  of 


72  Christ  and  Life 

any  one  who  understood  Christ.  The 
nn"racle  was  a  parable  in  action.  It  was 
a  lesson  of  judgment  on  life.  The  Jewish 
nation  was  bearing  leaves  and  no  fruit. 
The  time  had  not  come,  men  said,  for 
the  Messiah  and  for  human  recognition 
of  Him.  The  season  for  figs  was  afar 
off.  Jesus  taught  by  the  sharp  lesson  of 
the  fig-tree  that  in  the  moral  life  the 
season  for  figs  is  always  here,  that  recog- 
nition of  spiritual  opportunity  and  com- 
pliance with  moral  principle  are  not  post- 
ponable. 

This  lesson  of  "  always  "  in  the  spirit- 
ual life  and  in  the  moral  world  is  a  neces- 
sary lesson.  We  are  habitual  delinquents. 
We  justify  our  fruitlessness  on  the 
ground  that  we  are  sowing  seed,  and  that 
the  harvest  time  has  not  come.  For 
years,  generations,  and  centuries  the  seed 
has  been  sown  in  human  life  before  us, 
and  yet  we  are  saying,  "  The  time  of  figs 
has  not  come."  "  Say  not  ye,"  replies 
Jesus,  "  there  are  four  months  and  then 
Cometh  harvest?  Lift  up  your  eyes  and 
look,  behold  the  fields  are  white  already 


Always  and  In  All  Things     73 

to  the  harvest."  Every  man  is  to  be  bear- 
ing fruit  daily.  The  season  of  figs  is  al- 
ways. 

And,  further,  in  the  matter  of  moral 
principle,  v^e  are  constantly  discovering 
pretexts  for  postponement  or  exception. 
"  This  is  not  just  the  opportunity,"  we 
say.  "  It  is  not  a  felicitous  time,"  or, 
"  This  set  of  circumstances  is  surely  novel 
and  calls  for  our  waiving  for  the  present 
the  application  of  our  normal  moral  con- 
victions." And  so  many  men  go  trim- 
ming and  compromising  through  life, 
always  finding  some  reason  for  bearing 
leaves  alone  and  no  fruit.  "  Gather  them 
together  and  cast  them  into  the  fire,"  the 
Lord  of  the  vineyard  will  say  at  the  last. 

The  man  who  isn't  "always,"  is  in, 
danger  of  being  "  never."  He  schools 
himself  into  a  character  of  evasion.  The 
only  sure  way  of  being  ever  right  is  to 
resolve  to  be  always  right.  And  after  all, 
principles  are  only  principles  when  they 
are  solidly  sure.  Rules  have  their  excep- 
tions, but  not  principles.  There  are 
times  when  law  and  ordinances  may  and 


74  Christ  and  Life 

must  be  overridden  or  held  in  abeyance 
or  superseded  by  some  higher  law  or  or- 
dinance. But  a  principle  has  no  such  al- 
ternating life.    It  is  always. 

The  other  event  of  this  day  in  Jesus' 
life  fortified  and  enlarged  this  teaching 
of  His  from  the  figless  tree.  He  went 
into  the  temple  and  cast  out  them  that 
sold  and  them  that  bought  in  the  temple, 
and  overthrew  the  tables  of  the  money- 
changers and  the  seats  of  them  that  sold 
the  doves.  That  was  all  right.  He  was 
destroying  vested  interests,  to  be  sure, 
but  vested  interest  in  wrong-doing  was 
not  regarded  by  Jesus  in  the  same  defer- 
ential way  in  which  many  modern  men 
regard  vested  interest  in  the  liquor  traffic, 
gambling,  and  prostitution.  He  swept  all 
the  mass  of  trade  and  haggling  barter  out 
of  the  house  of  His  Father,  and  told  the 
multitude  why  He  did  it.  "  Is  it  not 
written,  '  My  house  shall  be  called  a  house 
of  prayer  for  all  the  nations  ? '  but  ye 
have  made  it  a  den  of  robbers."  Now 
that  was  all  right,  and  doubtless  the 
public  opinion  of  a  great  section  of  the 


Always  and  In  All  Things     75 

people  supported  Jesus  in  His  course  to 
this  point. 

But  Jesus  did  not  stop  here.  "  And  He 
would  not  suffer  that  any  man  should 
carry  a  vessel  through  the  temple."  That 
was  fanaticism,  men  say.  He  was  an  ex- 
tremist. Why  could  He  not  stop  at  some 
reasonable  moderation?  If  this  were  a 
present-day  transaction  we  can  under- 
stand how  the  moderate  men  would  ar- 
gue. "  Now,"  thev  would  say,  "  you  have 
driven  out  the  money-changers  and  the 
tradesmen,  you  have  established  your 
principle.  Don't  press  matters  to  an  ex- 
treme. Carrying  vessels  through  the 
temple  is  not  a  wicked  thing.  Show  your- 
self a  fair  and  moderate  man  by  not  press- 
ing your  principle  too  far."  That  is  the 
way  with  men.  But  it  was  not  Jesus' 
way.  The  fact  that  the  matter  was  com- 
paratively trivial  and  innocent  did  not 
alter  the  fact  that  it  was  unallowable 
and  wrong,  and  the  Lord  of  inexor- 
able righteousness,  of  the  rectitude  that 
never  swerved,  refused  to  surrender  the 
victory  He  had  gained  in  great  things  by 


76  Christ  and  Life 

abandoning  the  very  same  principle  when 
presented  in  small  things. 

A  principle  is  a  principle  always  and 
in  all  things.  No  lie  is  so  tiny  as  to 
cease  being  a  lie,  and  the  wrong  of  it 
does  not  consist  in  its  dimension,  but  in 
its  existence  under  any  dimension.  The 
same  power  that  makes  Jesus  able  to  save 
from  the  smallest  sin  constitutes  His 
power  to  save  from  the  greatest  sin,  and 
all  the  power  and  quality  which  are  requi- 
site in  the  one  who  will  save  from  gross 
sin,  are  necessary  in  Him  who  will  save 
from  insignificant  sin.  It  is  the  sin  from 
which  we  are  to  be  saved,  not  its  size. 
And  no  sin  is  insignificant.  Nor  is  any 
principle  which  is  the  antinomy  of  sin. 

Now  these  truths  of  the  last  Monday 
of  the  Saviour's  life  are  vital  truths  for 
our  Christianity.  We  are  saying  con- 
stantly that  the  conditions  are  not  ripe  for 
a  spiritual  awakening,  or  that  we  expect 
they  will  be  ripe  some  months  ahead,  or 
that  we  are  not  qualified  for  personal 
work,  but  hope  some  day  to  be.  The 
Lord  withered  these  falsehoods  when  He 


Always  and  In  All  Things     77 

withered  the  fig-tree.  Or  we  say  that 
when  we  have  more  time  we  will  study 
our  Bibles  and  cultivate  the  devotional 
life,  or  will  develop  those  capacities  with- 
out which  the  Christian  life  is  an  im- 
perfect and  joyless  thing.  We  forget  that 
the  time  of  figs  is  always,  and  that  the 
Lord  will  endure  in  the  world  of  men 
none  adorned  merely  with  leaves. 

Or  men  say  that  their  gambling  is  not 
such  a  dreadful  thing.  "  It  is  only  for 
trifles  or  for  a  little  money,  or  the  limit 
is  low,  and  no  one  loses  who  can't  afford 
it."  What  would  be  wrong  in  the  large 
is  innocent  in  the  small.  Or  in  the  com- 
mon intercourse  of  life,  men  urge,  little 
deceptions,  even  lies,  are  neccessary, 
though  they  admit  that  a  great  lie  would 
be  wrong,  or  even  a  little  one  if  told 
with  insufficient  motive.  But  water  is 
wet  whether  in  the  ocean  or  in  the  drop. 
And  a  lie  is  a  lie  whether  it  is  a  metre 
long  or  a  millimetre.  The  Lord  will  have 
no  buying  and  selling  in  the  temple. 
Neither  will  He  have  any  carrying  of  any 
vessels  through  it. 


7  8  Christ  and  Life 

The  very  despair  and  disintegration  of 
Hfe  consists  in  opening  up  our  principles 
to  interminable  exceptions.  Let  us  have 
done  with  it.  Let  our  principles  be  solid 
and  unyielding.  Our  sympathies  and  af- 
fections for  men  are  to  be  rich  and  kindly, 
but  there  is  no  excuse  for  treason  to 
principle  at  any  time  or  in  any  circum- 
stance. God  has  given  us  always  all  suf- 
ficiency in  all  things  in  His  grace.  Let 
us  give  Him  always  in  all  sufficiency  and 
in  all  things  the  answer  of  clear  and  un- 
wavering hearts,  which  repose  unshaken 
in  a  rectitude  of  life  as  rigid  as  the  rocks. 


VIII 

THE  PUBLICITY  OF  THE  SECRET 
LIFE 

Man  guards  the  privacy  of  his  per- 
sonality with  jealous  care.  He  will  not 
allow  it  to  be  too  deeply  invaded.  Some 
points  of  contact  with  life  he  allows  of 
necessity,  but  he  will  not  tolerate  any 
unveiling  of  his  secret  nature.  He  finds 
a  great  comfort  in  this.  However  much 
men  may  see,  there  is  an  inner  life  which 
they  cannot  see,  which  is  his  alone.  No 
eye  can  penetrate  therein.  There  he  sits 
alone  with  the  secrets  that  are  beyond 
speech  and  scrutiny.     This  is  our  view. 

Christ  calls  this  view  a  foolish 
blunder.  Men,  indeed,  may  not  be  able 
to  see  beyond  the  outer  walls  of  the  hu- 
man spirit,  but  in  reality,  Jesus  declares, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  privacy  and 
solitude  for  it.  As  He  met  men  He  was 
79 


8o  Christ  and  Life 

not  blocked  in  his  analysis  of  them  by 
any  barred  doors.  He  saw  their  inner- 
most springs  of  thought  and  motive.  He 
needed  no  testimony  borne  to  the  true  na- 
ture of  any  man,  for  He  himself  knew 
what  was  in  man.  And  the  power  which 
He  possessed  while  here  He  suggested 
was  a  permanent  attribute  of  the  Father. 
His  vision  is  of  the  secret  things.  "  Thy 
Father  which  seeth  in  secret,"  He  called 
Him. 

And,  although  men  can  hide  them- 
selves from  one  another  now,  and  im- 
agine that  for  the  secrets  buried  in  their 
spirits  there  is  neither  publicity  here  nor 
resurrection  hereafter,  Jesus  taught  that, 
as  no  secret  is  complete  enough  to  be  se- 
cret from  God  now,  so  none  is  so  complete 
as  to  be  shut  always  to  men.  The  universe 
is  one  day  to  watch  the  utter  and  naked 
exposure  of  every  human  spirit.  "  There 
is  nothing  covered,  that  shall  not  be  re- 
vealed, and  hid.  that  shall  not  be  known." 
The  full  horror  of  this  burst  later  on  the 
Apostle  Paul :  "  We  must  all  be  made 
manifest    before    the    judgment-seat    of 


The  Publicity  of  the  Secret  Life    8i 

Christ,  that  each  one  may  receive  the 
things  done  in  the  body,  according  to 
what  he  hath  done,  whether  it  be  good  or 
bad."  Can  any  cheek  be  so  hardened  as 
not  to  blaze  with  shame  then  before  the 
calm,  steady  eye  of  the  innumerable  mul- 
titude looking  on  the  mass  of  evil  imagi- 
nations, uncleannesses,  unkindlinesses, 
which  were  kept  back  from  the  view  of 
men  in  life,  but  are  now  bare  for  the 
pity  of  the  redeemed  and  the  scorn  of 
the  lost  ? 

All  the  hidden  things  of  life  will  be 
public  to  all  eyes,  then,  as  they  are  pub- 
lic now  to  the  eyes  of  God.  Ezekiel  re- 
cords in  the  eighth  chapter  of  his 
prophecy  his  startling  introduction  to 
this  unillusionment  of  God.  No  pre- 
tense of  external  propriety  blinded  God's 
vision.  What  men  were  seeing  was  to 
Him  of  less  than  no  consequence.  What 
men  could  not  see  riveted  His  gaze. 
Nothing  concerned  Him  but  the  secrets 
of  men. 

And  this  is  the  great  truth.  What 
we  deem  our  most  secret  things,  shared 


82  Christ  and  Life 

by  none,  are  the  public  knowledge  of 
God,  and  of  others  than  God.  "  A  cloud 
of  witnesses "  is  watching  us,  partici- 
pants in  the  undeceivableness  of  God 
and  looking  with  Him,  not  as  man 
looketh,  on  the  outward  appearance,  but 
on  the  secrets  of  the  heart.  Those  whose 
judgments  we  should  most  prize,  who 
have  gone  before  us  and  are  with  God. 
free  now  from  the  limitations  which  sur- 
round the  knowledge  of  men  and  confine 
it  to  what  we  grant  it,  see  now  what  we 
do  in  the  dark,  every  man  in  his  chamber 
of  imagery. 

The  gospel  declares  the  abolition  of 
secrecy.  "  No  man  saw  me  do  it,"  says 
the  sinner.  "  It  was  only  a  thought.  I 
would  not  dare  to  express  it.  I  did  not 
express  it.  No  one  knows  that  I  cher- 
ished it."  "  It  was  only  a  desire.  I  have 
not  done  the  thing.  No  one  knows."  "  I 
did  it  in  the  dark.  It  will  never  be 
found  out."  Not  so.  No  public  act  of 
our  lives  ever  was  so  open  or  under  such 
universal  observation.  What  do  the  un- 
seen spectators  care  for  the  drama  of  our 


The  Publicity  of  the  Secret  Life     83 

acts?  They  watch  the  battle  ground  of 
the  inner  life.  When  once  evil  has  con- 
quered there,  the  evil  act  will  follow  in  its 
course.  We  may  be  sure  that  it  is  pre- 
cisely that  part  of  our  life  which  we 
deem  secret,  and  in  which,  therefore,  we 
tolerate  what  we  could  not  endure  that 
men  should  see,  that  interests  God  and 
the  unseen  witnesses.  They  see  most 
clearly  and  watch  most  acutely  what  w& 
think  we  have  hidden  from  all  sight. 

We  forget  this  because  we  are  exter- 
nalists. Our  emphasis  is  on  the  outer  be- 
haviour. "  Do  the  right  things  "  is  our 
rule.  Christ's  emphasis  is  on  the  inner 
life,  the  secret  place.  Guilt  there  is 
guilt  before,  or  in  the  absence  of,  any 
consequent  act.  "  Ye  have  heard  that 
it  was  said.  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adult- 
ery: but  I  say  unto  you,  that  every  one 
that  looketh  on  a  woman  to  lust  after  her 
hath  committed  adultery  with  her  al- 
ready in  his  heart."  And  purification 
must  begin  in  the  inner  spirit.  "  Woe 
unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypo- 
cites!  for  ye  cleanse  the  outside  of  the 


84  Christ  and  Life 

cup  and  of  the  platter,  but  within  they 
are  full  of  extortion  and  excess. 
Thou  blind  Pharisee,  cleanse  first  the  in- 
side of  the  cup  and  of  the  platter,  that 
the  outside  thereof  may  become  clean 
also."  "  Be  right  within "  is  Christ's 
rule.  This  alone  is  character,  for  "  char- 
acter," as  Mr.  Moody  used  to  say  in  one 
of  his  favourite  quotations  "  is  what  a 
man  is  in  the  dark."  The  only  way  to 
make  sure  always  of  having  nothing  to 
conceal  or  be  ashamed  of  in  our  outer  life 
is  to  have  nothing  demanding  conceal- 
ment or  fearing  publicity  in  the  life  that 
is  dark  and  unknown  to  men,  but  ablaze 
with  the  light  of  the  scrutinies  of  the 
unseen  world. 

And,  after  all,  less  is  secret  than  we 
suppose  even  here  among  men.  What  is 
cherished  in  the  secret  chambers  of  the 
imagery  is  shaping  temper  and  will  and 
impulse  and  taste.  Before  we  know  it, 
almost,  what  we  thought  was  secret  has 
betrayed  itself,  or  has  so  corrupted  us 
that  the  very  desire  for  its  secrecy  has 
decayed.    The  only  safe  and  noble  course 


The  Publicity  of  the  Secret  Life     85 

is  so  to  live  and  think  and  feel  as  to  fear 
as  little  the  eyes  that  watch  our  hearts 
as  the  eyes  that  watch  the  ways  of  our 
outer  life.  "  To  keep  clear  of  conceal- 
ment," said  PhilHps  Brooks,  "  to  keep 
clear  of  the  need  of  concealment,  to  do 
nothing  which  he  might  not  do  out  on  ' 
the  middle  of  Boston  Common  at  noon- 
day— I  can  not  say  how  more  and  more 
that  seems  to  me  to  be  the  glory  of  a 
young  man's  life.  It  is  an  awful  hour  ^^ 
when  the  first  necessity  of  hiding  any- 
thing comes.  The  whole  life  is  differ- 
ent henceforth.  When  there  are  ques- 
tions to  be  feared,  and  eyes  to  be  avoided, 
and  subjects  which  must  not  be  touched, 
then  the  bloom  of  life  is  gone.  Put  off 
that  day  as  long  as  possible.  Put  it  off 
forever,  if  you  can."  So  surely  as  there  ^ 
is  anything  needing  to  be  concealed,  said 
Jesus,  will  it  be  impossible  to  conceal  it. 
"  Whatsoever  ye  have  said  in  the  dark- 
ness shall  be  heard  in  the  light ;  and 
what  ye  have  spoken  in  the  ear  in  the  ''' 
inner  chambers  shall  be  proclaimed  upon 
the  housetops." 


86  Christ  and  Life 

It  is  of  man's  self-deceivableness  that 
on  one  side  he  thinks  he  can  conceal  what 
is  inevitably  open,  and  on  the  other 
regards  as  dark  and  hidden  the  very 
things  which  God  has  made  plain  and 
clear.  The  simple  message  of  Jesus  was 
an  enigma  to  the  wise  and  understand- 
ing. They  knew  too  much  to  know.  The 
gospel  was  veiled  in  them ;  the  god  of 
this  world,  who  had  persuaded  them; 
that  their  secrets  were  hid,  had  blinded 
their  minds  so  that  God's  open  news  was 
darkness  to  them. 

Very  sweet  it  is  to  remember  that  this 
truth  has  its  other  side.  The  world, 
looking  at  what  it  sees,  pronounces  one 
man  good,  when,  in  God's  sight,  he  is 
diseased  and  corroded  and  unclean,  and 
this  is  horror.  But  the  world,  looking  at 
what  it  sees,  condemns  another  man, 
while  God  sees  in  him  the  struggle 
against  the  sin  that  besets  him,  the  bitter 
loathing  of  it,  the  helpless  trust  of  the 
heart  in  the  mercy  of  the  Saviour,  the 
sense  of  failure  and  defeat,  the  humility 
and  weariness  of  utter  abasement.     He 


The  Publicity  of  the  Secret  Life     87 

hears  the  cry  of  the  soul  for  the  strength 
of  the  Spirit,  and  with  that  which  the 
world  has  not  seen  and  heard,  the  Father 
is  well  pleased. 

*'  O  Lord,  Thou  hast  searched  me  and  known 
me,  .  .  . 

Thou  understandest  my  thought  afar  off,  .  .  . 

And  art  acquainted  with  all  my  ways. 

For  there  is  not  a  word  in  my  tongue, 

But,  lo,  O  Lord,  Thou  knowest  it  alto- 
gether. .  .  . 

The  darkness  and  the  light  are  both  alike  to 
Thee.  .  .  . 

Search  me,  O  God,  and  know  my  heart: 

Try  me,  and  know  my  thoughts : 

And  see  if  there  be  any  way  of  wickedness  in 
me. 

And  lead  me  in  the  way  everlasting." 


IX 

A  CHRISTIAN'S  FRIENDS 

Every  life  must  have  its  affections  and 
its  antagonisms.  We  are  made  for  loving 
and  for  hating.  We  can  not  escape  from 
desires  and  attachments,  or  from  dislikes 
and  repugnances.  Let  us  think  now  only 
of  the  former  and  the  place  they  must  fill 
in  the  Christian  life.  There  is  a  place  for 
them  in  life  which  must  be  filled.  Men 
may  deny  this.  They  may  dislike  society, 
but  in  that  case  they  like  solitude.  They 
may  avoid  friendships,  but  in  that  case 
they  seek  friendlessness.  They  may  not 
like  conversation  or  books,  but  some  con- 
trary taste  will  of  necessity  come  in  in- 
stead. All  of  us  have  our  tastes,  our  at- 
tachments, our  friends.  We  must  have 
them.  We  can  only  choose  what  they 
shall  be. 

No  choice    can    be    more    important. 


A  Christian's  Friends         89 

What  we  are  is  largely  the  product  of  the 
influences  that  have  played  upon  us  and 
shaped  us.  As  we  look  back  over  our  life 
we  can  trace  in  it  the  changes  produced 
from  without  by  our  friends  of  what- 
soever sort.  We  can  mark  the  work  of 
some  book  that  came  into  our  life,  at  a 
time  when  we  were  just  plastic  for  it, 
and  left  its  inefifaceable  imprint.  We  can 
see  when  a  certain  new  taste  came  to  birth 
and  once  born  in  turn  gave  birth  to  a 
score  of  new  insights  and  outreaches.  We 
can  recall  when  a  new  truth,  hidden  from 
us  before,  suddenly  burst  upon  us  and 
became  our  friend,  and  at  once  began  in 
us  a  work  of  transformation  and  noble 
growth.  And  above  all,  we  can  remember 
the  very  day,  perhaps,  when  we  caught 
for  the  first  time  the  light  in  human  eyes, 
and  felt  the  slow  warmth  or  the  sudden 
leap  of  heart  within  that  told  us  a  new 
friend  had  come.  What  boundless  bless- 
ings that  friendship  has  brought  to  us 
since ! 

In  our  deepest  life  nothing  is  more  im- 
portant than  our  friends.    The  essence  of 


90  Christ  and  Life 

the  truest  Christian  life  is  a  friendship 
with  Jesus.  "  No  longer,"  He  said,  "  do 
I  call  you  servants ;  for  the  servant  know- 
eth  not  what  his  lord  doeth :  but  I  have 
called  you  friends ;  for  all  things  that  I 
heard  from  My  Father  I  have  made 
known  unto  you,"  And  our  whole  life 
will  be  rich  and  full  and  strong  and 
worthy  when  filled  with  such  friends  as 
the  great  Friend  will  approve,  and  such 
friendships  as  spring  up  naturally  and 
irresistibly  out  of  His  perfect  love. 

With  friends  and  friendships  like  these, 
the  absence  of  other  things  is  unnoticed. 
"  When  Socrates,"  wrote  Dr.  Samuel 
Johnson,  "  was  building  himself  a  home 
at  Athens,  being  asked  by  one  that  ob- 
served the  littleness  of  the  design,  why  a 
man  so  eminent  would  not  have  an  abode 
more  suitable  to  his  dignity,  he  replied 
'  that  he  should  think  himself  sufficiently 
accommodated  if  he  could  see  that  nar- 
row habitation  filled  with  real  friends.'  " 
The  friendless  king,  with  treasures  and 
palace,  is  poor  and  pitiable  in  comparison 
with  his  lowly  subject  who  loves  and  is 


A  Christian's  Friends         91 

loved  by  friends  who  trust  him  and  who 
desire  his  trust, 

"  Better  is  a  dinner  of  herbs  where  love  is, 
That  a   stalled  ox  and   hatred   therewith." 

The  true  wealth  and  joy  of  life  is  in 
friends.  With  true  friendships  there  is 
no  room  for  discontent.  Our  Christian 
life  can  lack  nothing,  can  be  only  a  rich, 
sweet,  pure  content  when  realised  as  a 
living  friendship  with  the  Saviour. 

"  Since  Jesus  is  my  friend, 
And  I  to  Him  belong, 
It  matters   not   what   foes  intend, 
However  fierce  and  strong." 

But  besides  the  friendship  of  Jesus,  life 
is  full  of  human  friendships,  or  ought  to 
be.  Jesus  the  Friend  is  the  real  fountain 
and  guarantee  of  human  friendship.  And 
the  friendships  that  Jesus  fosters  have  the 
character  of  the  perfect  friendship  that 
He  offers.  They  are  abiding.  That  is  their 
first  characteristic.  No  friendship  that  is 
not  abiding  will  find  a  place  in  the  true 
Christian  life,  for  the  reason  that  no  re- 


92  Christ  and  Life 

lationship  that  is  temporary  or  transient 
can  be  a  friendship.  This  is  not  the 
world's  view.  "  Whilst  you  are  prosper- 
ous," says  Ovid,  "  you  can  remember 
many  friends ;  but  when  the  storm  comes, 
you  are  left  alone."  "  Friendship,"  says 
Cato,  "  ought  not  to  be  unripped,  but  un- 
stitched." But  these  are  neither  friends 
nor  friendships.  One  might  as  well  speak 
of  dry  water  or  a  cold  fire  as  of  a  broken 
friendship.  The  Lord  loved  enduringly. 
Let  us  be  like  Him  in  this.  When  our 
ideals  of  friendship-love  disintegrate  and 
we  allow  ourselves  to  speak  of  it  as  a 
passing  or  feeble  thing,  liable  to  destruc- 
tion by  any  act  or  word,  one  of  the  best 
elements  in  the  Christian  life  is  destroyed, 
namely,  the  will  to  love  in  spite  of  love- 
lessness.  That  is  what  makes  the  divine 
love  so  holy  and  wonderful. 

For  it  is  selfishness  that  mars  friend- 
ship. We  cherish  our  friendships  for 
what  they  are  to  us,  rather  than  for  what 
we  may  be  in  them,  and  so,  naturally, 
when  we  cease  to  get  out  of  them  what 
we  counted  on  in  the  original  bargain,  we 


A  Christian's  Friends  93 

drop  them  in  disgust.  But  the  true  Chris- 
tian life  will  hold  its  friendships  in  higher 
esteem.  It  will  enter  them  only  with  the 
will  to  give  help  and  do  good,  and  so  it 
will  not  be  disappointed  when  it  is  shown 
that  help  is  needed  and  that  there  is  room 
for  doing  good. 

Among  our  friends  there  should  be 
some  lowly  lives.  It  is  not  good  that  all 
of  any  m.an's  friends  should  be  on  the 
same  social  plane  with  himself  or  on  a 
higher  social  plane.  Some  should  be 
lower.  It  might  be  enough  to  point  to 
Jesus'  example.  Though  He  was  the  Son 
of  God,  He  stooped  to  share  the  food  of 
fishermen,  and  to  make  publicans  Plis 
friends.  But  apart  from  the  duty  of 
Christlike  service,  we  lose  much  by  hav- 
ing no  friends  among  the  poor.  There 
are  experiences  which  only  the  poor  pos- 
sess, and  they  have  visions  and  simplici- 
ties and  sympathies  which  it  is  one  of  the 
greatest  privileges  of  life  to  share.  The 
true  Christian  life  requires  genuine  and 
equal  friendships  with  those  who  have 
less  of  some  things  than  we  have,  and  as 


94  Christ  and  Life 

compensation,  at  the  even  hands  of  the 
good  God,  of  other  things  have  more.  It 
is  the  regret  of  one  of  the  most  famous 
boys'  schools  in  this  land  that  it  draws 
its  boys  exclusively  from  one  social  class, 
and  therefore  lacks  the  fibre  and  tone 
virhich  poor  boys  would  provide.  There 
is  another  great  school  which  supplies 
scholarships  for  needy  boys  and  makes 
room  for  them  on  the  ground  that  the 
school  could  not  do  its  work  without  them, 
or  shape  character  and  will,  as  it  aims 
to  do  in  all  its  boys,  without  the  help  of 
an  element  in  the  school  only  to  be  found 
in  the  presence  of  boys  of  scanty  means, 
but  brave,  strong-hearted,  and  conscious 
of  the  manliness  of  sacrifice  and  toil. 

Those  men  and  women,  and  boys  and 
girls,  are  to  be  pitied  who  can  not  easily 
make  friendships  of  this  sort ;  who  are  too 
priggish  to  fit  into  them,  or  too  blind  to 
see  their  joy  and  help.  And  no  one  of  us, 
however  humble  and  lowly,  need  miss  the 
help  and  joy.  There  is  always  some  one 
a  little  lower  down  whom  we  can  help, 


A  Christian's  Friends         95 

and  helping  find  that  we  have  gained  a 
hundredfold  more  than  we  gave. 

We  are  to  have  other  friends  than  per- 
sons. There  is  spiritual  help  and  round- 
ness of  mind  and  heart  in  a  love  for 
nature,  "  the  art  of  God,"  for  trees  and 
brooks  and  the  blue  beauty  of  the  sky; 
for  birds  and  the  little  things  that  God 
has  made.  St.  Francis,  the  legend  says, 
so  loved  the  creatures  that  they  felt  his 
love  and  came  to  him.  It  is  good  for  a 
Christian  to  have  through  all  his  life  a 
child's  heart  of  tender  pity  for  the  little 
things. 

Among  books,  too,  we  are  to  make 
friendships.  It  is  both  right  and  proper 
to  read  many  books,  but  it  is  wrong  not 
to  form  special  friendships  with  a  few. 
We  must  make  our  own  choices,  but  that 
heart  has  missed  something  which  has  not 
a  little  circle  of  intimate  friends,  loved 
perhaps  by  others  also,  but  yet  its 
own  particular  and  sole  friends.  Get  if 
you  can  some  books  of  rich  association 
and  history.     I  have  a  copy  of  Thomas 


96  Christ  and  Life 

Fuller's  "  Good  Thoughts  "  which  was 
carried  during  the  war  by  a  dear  friend, 
and  which  sank  in  the  sea  with  an  army 
transport,  in  seventy  fathoms,  lay  there 
three  months,  and  was  subsequently  re- 
covered. It  is  rebound  now,  but  its  pages 
show  the  water  stains,  especially  the  page 
on  which  occur  the  words  of  the  good  old 
preacher,  "  Music  is  sweetest  near  or  over 
rivers,  where  the  echo  thereof  is  best  re- 
bounded by  the  waters."  Of  course,  we 
make  friends  with  the  Bible,  and  have 
one  copy  of  it,  surely,  that  is  familiar 
and  responsive  to  our  touch,  and  that 
knows  our  ways  and  will  open  to  what 
we  love  best. 

In  the  great  range  of  truth,  also,  it  is 
good  for  a  Christian  while  trying  to  reach 
and  love  all,  to  have  some  few  great 
trulhs  especially  familiar  and  precious  to 
him — friends,  as  it  were,  that  will  come  to 
him  in  his  free  hours  and  linger  with  him, 
comforting  and  strengthening  and  quick- 
ening him.  The  love  of  Christ,  the  will 
of  God,  the  care  of  the  Father,  the  lesson 
of  the  Cross,  the  power  of  the  Resurrec- 


A  Christian's  Friends  97 

tion, — these  are  true  friends.  In  the  early 
Church  we  find  the  apostles  making  much 
of  the  truth  of  Christ's  second  coming. 
Jesus  had  made  much  of  it.  It  was  tied 
indissohibly  to  the  Lord's  Supper — "  as 
often  as  ye  eat  this  bread,  and  drink  this 
cup,  ye  proclaim  the  Lord's  death  till  He 
come."  Paul  loved  it,  and  hoped  that 
others  would.  He  was  to  receive  his 
crown  of  righteousness  at  that  day,  and 
not  he  only,  but  all  those  also  that  love 
Christ's  appearing.  It  is  good  for  the 
heart  to  have  friends  like  these  among 
the  great  truths  of  life,  and  to  possess 
the  blessing  of  their  companionship  and 
transfiguring  might. 

If  our  friends  were  only  for  life  here  it 
would  yet  be  worth  our  while  to  seek 
them;  but  they  are  not  for  this  life  only. 
Whether  for  weal  or  woe,  we  make  them 
for  eternity.  Thus  Whately  writes  :  "  As 
we  have  seen  those  who  have  been  loving 
playmates  in  childhood  grow  up,  if  they 
grow  up  with  good,  truth-like  disposi- 
tions, into  still  closer  friendship  in  riper 
years,  so  also  it  is  probable  that  when  this, 


98  Christ  and  Life 

our  state  of  childhood  shall  be  perfected, 
in  the  maturity  of  a  better  world,  the  like 
attachments  will  continue  between  those 
companions  who  have  trod  together  the 
Christian  path  to  glory,  and  have  taken 
sweet  counsel  together  and  walked  in  the 
house  of  God  as  friends." 


X 

THE  NOBILITY  OF  WRATH 

"  And  He  looked  round  about  on  them 
with  anger,  being  grieved  at  the  hardening 
of  their  heart."  This  is  what  Mark  says 
of  the  Saviour,  who  was  meek  and  lowly 
in  heart,  and  who,  as  a  lamb  before  His 
shearers  is  dumb,  opened  not  His  mouth. 
The  Lord  of  love  was  angry.  Can  it  be 
possible  ?  Mark's  word  for  "  anger  "  can 
not  be  explained  away.  It  is  the  regular 
New  Testament  word  for  anger  or  wrath. 
And  why  should  one  try  to  explain  it 
away?  Right  wrath  is  no  less  noble  than 
love.  Each  necessitates  the  other.  Christ's 
loving  offer  of  health  on  the  Sabbath  is 
followed  by  His  anger  at  human  faithless- 
ness, and  His  stern  rebuke  of  Pharisaic 
hyprocrisy  precedes  His  tender  appeal  to 
the  city  which  would  not  recognise  her 
King.  One  day  He  stood  as  Master  in 
the  temple,  with  blazing  eyes  and  a  whip 
99 


TOO  Christ  and  Life 

of  cords  in  His  hand,  driving  out  the  men 
who  made  His  Father's  house  a  place  of 
merchandise  and  a  den  of  thieves,  and 
the  next  He  is  led  as  a  lamb  to  the 
slaughter,  and  opens  not  His  mouth. 

Our  Lord's  very  love  of  purity  necessi- 
tated a  hatred  of  the  knowledge  of  sin, 
and  His  love  of  holiness  a  hatred  of  sin 
itself.  His  positive  affection  for  the  good 
involved  a  positive  detestation  of  the  evil. 
And  by  so  much  as  His  heart  was  tender 
toward  the  things  that  were  worthy  and 
pure,  was  it  unavoidably  hard  toward  all 
that  was  low  and  unlovely  and  wrong. 

Wrath  is  noble  because  it  is  necessary. 
We  can  not  maintain  ourselves  in  a  world 
of  sin  by  a  mere  neglect  of  its  evil  while 
we  seek  its  good.  The  struggle  toward 
what  we  seek  involves  a  struggle  from 
what  we  shun.  It  is  the  evil  of  the  world 
that  furnishes  us  with  footing  for  our 
ascent. 

"  We  rise  by  the  things  that  are  under  our  feet, 
By  what  we  have  mastered  of  good  and  of 

gain, 
By  the  pride  deposed  and  the  passions  slain, 

And  the  vanquished  ills  that  we  hourly  meet." 


The  Nobility  of  Wrath       loi 

The  life  that  is  a  mere  struggle  against 
sin  is  in  danger  of  being  a  mere  victim 
to  sin.  But  the  life  that  is  not  a  struggle 
against  sin  at  all  is  in  equal  danger  of 
missing  its  end.  "  Be  not  overcome  of 
evil "  is  Paul's  counsel  of  conflict. 
"  How  ?  "  -we  ask.  "  Overcome  evil  with 
good."  "  Draw  nigh  to  God,"  James  en- 
joins. "How?"  we  ask.  "Resist  the 
devil." 

An  attempt  to  escape  from  human  evil 
by  ignoring  it,  or  denying  its  existence, 
or  cultivating  a  mere  passive  interest  in  it, 
is  dangerous.  The  safer  course  is  to  hate 
it.  That  is  the  purpose  of  its  existence 
so  far  as  the  Christian  is  concerned, — to 
supply  a  legitimate  object  of  his  wrath. 
One  part  of  the  mission  of  Christ  may  be 
described  in  these  terms :  "  I  came  not  to 
send  peace,  but  a  sword,  ...  to  set  a  man 
at  variance."  In  the  heart  of  God  Him- 
self we  find  such  hatred  beside  His  in- 
finite love.  The  same  disciple  who  speaks 
of  the  love  that  gave  Jesus  to  die  speaks 
also  of  "  the  fierceness  of  the  wrath  of  al- 
mighty God," — the  same  God  of  whom 
the  prophet  said  that  He  was  of  "  purer 


I02  Christ  and  Life 

eyes  than  to  behold  iniquity,"  and  who 
"  can  not  look  on  sin  with  any  degree  of 
allowance." 

There  are  times  in  the  life  of  man,  and 
of  each  man,  when  this  truth  needs  to  be 
revived.  The  human  spirit  slips  into 
moderatism,  into  frivolity,  into  softness 
of  moral  judgment.  At  such  times  we 
need  to  learn  afresh  from  our  Lord  the 
nobility  of  wrath.  It  was  with  some  rec- 
ognition of  this  that  Newman  wrote  the 
extreme  words  in  his  "  Apologia  " :  "I 
do  not  shrink  from  uttering  my  firm  con- 
viction that  it  would  be  a  gain  to  the 
country  were  it  vastly  more  superstitious, 
more  bigoted,  more  gloomy,  more  fierce, 
in  its  religion,  than  at  present  it  shows 
itself  to  be."  The  Psalmist  felt  this,  and 
cried : 

"  Hot  indignation  hath  taken  hold  upon  me. 
Because  of  the  wicked  that  forsake  Thy  law." 

Such  noble  wrath  is  a  fountain  of  great 
power  and  of  great  joy.  "  Luther  said 
that  he  never  did  anything  well  till  his 
wrath  was  excited,  and  then  he  could  do 


The  Nobility  of  Wrath      103 

anyching  well."  And  Paul  was  a  splen- 
did illustration  of  this.  His  mighty  soul 
reared  against  sophistries  and  falsehoods 
and  squalors  of  all  kinds.  There  came 
times  when  he  thought  and  wrought  like 
a  roaring  storm  upon  the  sea.  Many  of 
his  counsels  embody  his  own  spirit.  "  Be 
ye  angry,  and  sin  not:  let  not  the  sun  go 
down  upon  your  wrath  [that  is,  "  anger 
run  into  excess,"  a  word  used  only  here 
in  the  Bible]  :  neither  give  place  to  the 
devil."  And  the  power  of  such  wrath  is 
itself  a  joy.  Robertson  of  Brighton  has 
recalled  one  of  the  moments  in  his  own 
life  when  he  felt  this :  "  My  blood  was  at 
the  moment  running  fire,  and  I  remem- 
bered that  I  had  once  in  my  life  stood 
before  my  fellow-creature  with  words 
that  scathed  and  blasted ;  once  in  my  life 
I  felt  a  terrible  might ;  I  knew  and  re- 
joiced to  know  that  I  was  inflicting  the 
sentence  of  a  coward's  and  a  liar's  hell." 
There  is  a  vast  peril  in  such  power. 
Though  we  be  angry,  we  are  not  to  sin. 
And  how  may  men  feel  right  wrath  and 
escape  sin?    In  his  "  Sermon  on  Resent- 


I04  Christ  and  Life 

ment,"  Bishop  Butler  specifies  the  con- 
ditions under  which  righteous  wrath  be- 
comes sinful:  "  (i)  when,  from  parti- 
ality to  ourselves,  we  imagine  an  injury 
done  us  when  there  is  none;  (2)  when 
this  partiality  represents  it  to  us  greater 
than  it  really  is;  (3)  when  we  feel  re- 
sentment on  account  of  pain  or  incon- 
venience without  injury;  (4)  when  indig- 
nation rises  too  high;  (5)  when  pain  or 
harm  is  inflicted  to  gratify  that  resent- 
ment, though  naturally  raised."  But  it  is 
safer  not  to  be  angry  for  ourselves  at  all. 
True  wrath  must  have  no  selfishness  in 
it.  It  must  be  a  zeal,  not  for  personal 
honor,  but  for  the  rights  of  truth  and 
purity,  and  for  the  glory  of  Christ.  The 
Psalmist's  hatred  was  not  of  his  own  foes, 
or  for  his  own  wrongs.  "  I  hate  every 
false  way."  "  I  hate  and  abhor  false- 
hood." "  I  hate  them  that  hate  Thee." 
Those  may  hate  who  hate  evil  for  its 
hatefulness,  and  for  the  sake  of  God.  Be- 
cause he  did  this,  Robertson  was  saved 
from  the  perils  of  his  wrath.  "  I  have 
seen    him,"    wrote    one    of    his    friends, 


The  Nobility  of  Wrath      105 

"  grind  his  teeth  and  clench  his  fists 
when  passing  a  man  who  he  knew  was 
bent  on  dishonoring  an  innocent  girl." 
Those  may  be  angry  at  sin  in  the  world 
who  are  most  angry  at  sin  in  themselves. 

"  Thou  to  wax  fierce 
In  the  cause  of  the  Lord  I 
Anger  and  zeal, 
And  the  joy  of  the  brave, 
Who  bade  thee  to  feel, 
Sin's  slave?  " 

Hate  sin  in  yourself  first,  and  then  you 
may  hate  it  in  itself  and  in  the  world. 

And  those  can  enjoy  the  exhilaration  of 
true  wrath,  and  escape  its  dangers  and 
weakness,  who  depart  never  from  the 
presence  of  Christ.  To  be  angry  out  of 
Him  is  to  exchange  bitterness  against  sin 
for  hatred  of  the  sinner,  and  firmness  of 
will  for  hardness  of  heart.  But  he  can  be 
angry  and  sin  not,  and  serve  God  and  man 
in  his  wrath,  whose  anger  is  born  of  "  the 
wrath  of  Almighty  God,"  and  "  the  wrath 
of  the  Lamb." 


xr 

A  CHRISTIAN'S  FOES 

"  Well  do  I  remember,"  said  Kings- 
ley,  of  his  friend  Maurice,  "  when  we 
were  looking  together  at  Leonardo  da 
Vinci's  fresco  of  the  '  Last  Supper,'  his 
complaining,  almost  with  indignation,  of 
the  girlish  and  sentimental  face  which  the 
painter,  like  too  many  Italians,  had  given 
to  St.  John."  John  was  the  apostle  of 
love,  friend  of  the  Saviour  and  of  all  men, 
but  he  was  also  brother  of  James,  and 
these  two  the  Lord  had  named  Boanerges, 
which  is  Sons  of  Thunder.  He  was  the 
one  who  wrote  "  Beloved,  let  us  love  one 
another:  for  love  is  of  God;  and  every 
one  that  loveth  is  begotten  of  God,  and 
knoweth  God.  .  .  .  And  this  command- 
ment have  we  from  Him,  that  he  who 
loveth  God  love  his  brother  also."  Yet 
it  is  the  same  apostle  who  speaks  bitterly 
1 06 


A  Christian's  Foes  107 

of  Satan's  possession  of  Judas  and  of 
his  traitorous  character  from  the  begin- 
ning, who  never  refers  to  Nicodemus 
without  a  touch  of  antagonism  to  his 
timidity,  and  who  writes  of  those  who 
betray  the  teaching  of  Christ,  "If  any  one 
cometh  unto  you,  and  bringeth  not  this 
teaching,  receive  him  not  into  your  house, 
and  give  him  no  greeting:  for  he  that 
giveth  him  greeting  partaketh  in  his  evil 
works."  The  loving  John  was  no  soft 
weakling.  His  heart  was  tender,  but  his 
will  was  stern  toward  all  falsehood  and 
cowardice  and  sin.  He  made  room  in  his 
life  for  enmities  as  well  as  affections. 

Now,  it  may  seem  at  first  thought  that 
there  can  be  no  place  for  foes  and  hos- 
tility in  the  Christian  life.  We  think  of  it 
as  a  life  of  love,  of  forgiveness,  of  patient 
endurance  of  wrongdoing.  It  is  this.  But 
it  is  also  a  life  of  hate,  of  implacableness, 
of  eager  resistance  of  wrong.  If  it  needs 
to  be  rich  in  friends,  it  must  needs  also 
boldly  recognise  and  confront  its  foes, 
and  not  cry  peace  when  there  is  no  peace, 
or  seek  rest  when  it  is  a  time  for  action 


io8  Christ  and  Life 

and  conflict.  It  was  just  the  unwilHng- 
ness  to  fight  wrong  and  to  be  defeated 
and  die  fighting  it,  if  need  be,  that  made 
Erasmus  such  a  weakHng  in  the  seething 
times  of  the  Reformation,  while  Luther's 
power  lay  in  his  huge  uncompromising- 
ness,  his  vigorous  struggling  against 
wrong,  his  inability  to  condone  it  or  to 
be  silent  before  it. 

"  I  have  always  been  cautious,"  said 
Erasmus.  "  I  would  rather  die  than 
cause  a  disturbance  in  the  State.  .  ,  . 
When  we  can  do  no  good,  we  have  a  right 
to  be  silent.  A  worm  like  me  must  not 
dispute  with  our  lawful  rulers.  .  .  .  We 
must  bear  almost  anything  rather  than 
throw  the  world  into  confusion.  There 
are  seasons  when  we  must  even  conceal 
the  truth." 

"  I  can  not  abide  your  lies  and  decep- 
tions," was  Luther's  attitude ;  "  I  do  not 
go  into  the  struggle  because  I  want  to 
do  it,  but  God  helping  me,  I  will  make  no 
compromise  with  falsehood,  and  I  am 
willing  to  die  for  speaking,  but  I  am  not 
willing  to  be  silent  before  wrong." 


A  Christian's  Foes  109 

God  has  enemies  as  well  as  friends. 
He  loves  men,  but  He  hates  sin.  The 
very  capacities  for  love  in  God  involve 
capacities  for  hate.  Jesus  also  hated  as 
well  as  loved,  and  found  the  joy  of  life  in 
both. 

"  Thou    hast    loved    righteousness,    and    hated 
wickedness : 
Therefore  God,  Thy  God,  hath  anointed  Thee 
With  the  oil  of  gladness  above  Thy  fellows." 

Sin  appeared  to  Him  in  all  its  hideous- 
ness.  He  saw  its  infinite  and  horrible 
ravages  in  the  human  nature  He  had  as- 
sumed and  was  trying  to  redeem.  As 
He  looked  out  upon  men 

"  Bound    who    should    conquer,    slaves    who 
should  be  kings," 

and  compared  their  life  with  His,  as  he 
struggled  to  make  His  truth  intelligent 
to  their  sin-distorted  minds,  as  He  laid 
the  thrilling  love  of  His  Father  upon  their 
hearts  and  found  them  torpid,  and  God's 
life  upon  their  souls  and  found  them  dead, 
as  He  spoke  with  the  unmistakable  voice 


I  lo  Christ  and  Life 

of  the  true  shepherd  to  the  sheep  and  dis- 
covered that  sin  had  slain  their  capacity 
to  recognise  it,  He  took  in  all  the  wicked- 
ness, the  ruin,  the  deadly  defilement  of 
sin,  and  He  loathed  it  with  all  His  soul. 

He  flung  Satan  from  Him.  He  de- 
nounced him  as  the  father  of  lies.  He 
fought  him  to  the  death,  and  He  wel- 
comed the  cross  with  its  shame  as  the  tri- 
umphant instrument  for  slaying  the  sin 
of'the  world  which  He  hated  without  re- 
straint. And  for  His  hate  of  this  and 
His  love  of  man,  He  was  wiUing  to  live 
and  die. 

Now,  if  Jesus  thus  hated  as  well  as 
loved,  we  may  be  sure  that  our  life  can  not 
be  filled  with  love  alone.  We  shall  have 
to  have  foes  as  well  as  friends.  There 
are  those  who  assure  us  that  it  need  not 
be  so.  They  tell  us  to  think  only  of  the 
admirations  of  life,  to  ignore  the  detesta- 
tions. But  this  does  not  show  a  keen 
knowledge  of  human  nature.  The  an- 
tagonising faculties  of  men  are  stronger 
than  their  admiring  faculties.  Get  access 
to  the  hearts  of  boys  and  you  will  find 


A  Christian's  Foes  iii 

that  what  quickens  the  pulse  of  the  boy, 
wakens  his  energies,  and  commands  his 
will,  is  the  thought  of  struggle.  The 
feeble  moralists  regret  that  it  is  so.  So 
does  the  devil.  But  we  are  as  we  are,  and 
God  deals  with  us  as  we  are.  He  knows 
that  we  need  admirations  and  He  pro- 
vides them.  He  knows  that  we  need  de- 
testations and  He  points  to  sin  and  says. 
Behold  your  foe! 

It  is  true  that  love  of  the  holy  and 
noble  must  be  the  dominant  thought  of 
life,  and  that  hatred  of  the  unworthy  and 
evil  must  not  usurp  the  whole  of  life.  But 
it  must  be  there  as  the  background  and 
buttress  of  the  love  of  the  good.  There 
can  be  no  guarantee  that  the  front  of  life 
will  be  safe  save  in  the  protection  of  the 
rear,  and  life  can  reach  up  into  the  good 
only  by  mounting  upon  and  trampling 
down  the  evil.  If  men  just  play  with  evil 
and  look  with  negative  indifference  on 
sin,  they  walk  in  peril  greater  than  they 
know.  The  man  who  would  be  serene 
must  combine,  as  Robertson  of  Brighton 
did,  "  a  hatred  and  resistance  of  evil  and 


112  Christ  and  Life 

a  reverence  and  effort  for  purity."  "  Hate 
the  evil,  and  love  the  good,"  cries  the 
prophet  Amos,  and  on  such  a  life  of 
double  power  he  is  sure  "  the  Lord,  the 
God  of  hosts,  will  be  gracious." 

Because  sin  in  its  abstract  form  can 
not  come  to  us,  we  are  to  hate  it  in  its 
concrete  manifestations.  Let  us  look 
upon  these  as  our  legitimate  foes,  and 
plan  our  life  not  as  a  search  for  beauty 
and  purity  only,  but,  of  necessity  and  for 
the  very  reason  that  we  are  earnest  in  our 
desire  for  beauty  and  purity,  as  a  cam- 
paign against  these  definite  adversaries. 

Sin  comes  to  us  in  books  and  pictures. 
Do  not  touch  the  books  and  pictures  in 
which  sin  comes,  if  they  belong  to  others. 
Destroy  them  if  they  are  yours.  Sin 
comes  in  certain  places.  They  warm  the 
heart  toward  sin's  approaches.  Flee 
from  such  places.  Sin  lures  us  with  the 
pleasure  of  certain  acts,  small  at  first 
and  solitary.  Smite  it,  oh,  smite  it!  Sin 
comes  creeping  to  us  in  a  thousand  ways. 
Hurl  it  out  into  the  night  of  which  it  is 
the  exhalation. 


A  Christian's  Foes  113 

But  are  we  to  hurt  persons  and  antag- 
onise them?  What  are  persons?  Im- 
mortal spirits  diversely  manifesting 
themselves,  often  inconsistently,  opposite 
passions  and  inclinations  contending  for 
the  mastery.  We  can  not  take  the  same 
attitude  toward  all  of  these  diverse  ele- 
ments. What  is  good  and  worthy  we 
can  admire.  The  immortality  which  is 
revealed  in  all  we  are  to  respect  and  love. 
All  that  is  evil  and  wrong  we  are  to  hate, 
and  if  the  person  will  not  be  dissevered 
from  the  evil  that  defiles,  if  he  resolutely 
and  willfully  commits  himself  to  the 
service  of  evil,  we  are  to  oppose  him. 
As  John  Willis  Gleed  says,  though  it  is  a 
course  needing  great  caution  and  prayer, 
"  When  a  man  has  proved  himself  a 
thorough-paced  scoundrel,  treat  him  like 
one,  affront  him,  oppose  him,  risk  some- 
thing, risk  all,  to  break  down  his  influ- 
ence, to  terminate  his  career ;  do  this  and 
you  will  feel  a  happiness  inside  you  that 
is  royal — and  you  will  be  as  one  among 
a  thousand." 

Bad  men  who  are  doing  evil  and  lov- 


114  Christ  and  Life 

ing  evil  are  not  to  be  treated  by  us  as 
sincere  but  weak  men  who  are  led  mis- 
takenly astray.  One  of  the  curses ,  of 
society  now  is  that  a  man  may  often  be 
an  adulterer,  a  gambler,  a  public  curse, 
and  yet  be  received  as  though  he  were 
innocent  and  honest.  That  Christian  life 
which  slurs  over  the  immorality  of  such 
men  as  though  it  were  not  is  an  inverte- 
brate thing.  They  are  the  foes  of  Christ. 
They  can  not  be  our  friends. 

In  the  simple,  quiet  life  of  most  Chris- 
tians perhaps  no  questions  of  great  diffi- 
culty will  arise.  Sin  will  present  itself 
in  impersonal  ways,  and  can  be  despised 
and  fought  just  as  sin.  But  in  all  Chris- 
tian lives  there  must  be  the  capacity  at 
least  for  sympathy  with  the  heart  of  the 
Psalmist,  who  wrote: — 

"  I  hate  them  that  are  of  a  wicked  mind ; 
But  Thy  law  do  I  love. 
Through  Thy  precepts  I  get  understanding: 
Therefore  I  hate  every  false  way. 
I  hate  and  abhor  falsehood, 
But  Thy  law  do  I  love." 


A  Christian's  Foes  115 

We  may  never  fall  into  lukewarmness 
toward  evil  or  evil  men.  There  is  no 
power  or  safety  for  us  but  in  a  heart  cold 
toward  the  enticements  of  wrong,  and 
hot  in  resentment  against  it.  Our  prayer 
must  be  the  prayer  the  boys  of  Phillips 
Andover  and  Hotchkiss  are  taught  to 
pray :  "  O  God,  whom  none  can  love  ex- 
cept they  hate  the  thing  that  is  evil,  and 
who  wiliest  by  Thy  Son,  our  Saviour,  to 
redeem  us  from  all  iniquity,  deliver  us 
when  we  are  tempted  to  look  on  sin 
without  abhorrence,  and  let  the  virtue 
of  His  passion  come  between  us  and  the 
enemy  of  our  souls,  through  the  same 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  Amen.'' 


XII 

CHRISTIAN  THINKING 

One  curious  characteristic  of  our  day 
is  the  divorce  of  opinion  from  character. 
It  is  assumed  that  men  can  perceive  the 
truth  in  thought  regardless  of  whether 
they  are  true  in  Hfe.  The  proper  tone  of 
discussion  and  intercourse  is  impersonal, 
questions  of  moral  attitude  and  personal 
life  being  reserved  from  scrutiny.  There 
is  undoubtedly  some  justification  of  this. 
It  is  much  easier  to  get  along  in  this  way, 
and  those  who  dislike  to  have  their  in- 
most character  too  publicly  exposed  can 
be  much  more  cheerful  in  such  a  world. 
Politics  becomes,  for  example,  a  more 
comfortable  field  for  activity  when  it  is 
held  to  be  improper  to  introduce  ques- 
tions of  moral  character,  and  when  a 
man  is  given  credit  for  opinion  which 
has  no  guarantee  in  the  fibre  of  his  moral 
ii6 


Christian  Thinking  117 

nature.  Unregenerate  men  write  books 
on  theology,  and  in  some  countries  even 
hold  theological  chairs,  while  the  man 
who  writes  the  religious  editorials  on  a 
great  daily  may  himself  be  an  intemper- 
ate and  irreligious  man.  It  is  easy  to  call 
this  hypocrisy,  but  it  is  quite  adequately 
sanctioned  by  the  spirit  of  our  day.  A 
man  of  orthodox  opinion  may  be  marked 
by  much  uncharitableness  and  bitterness 
of  nature,  and  a  man  of  amiable  nature  by 
much  dishonest  slovenliness  of  opinion, 
and  each  be  unconscious  of  his  defect,  or 
cover  it  with  the  mantle  of  his  possessed 
virtue. 

The  true  Christian  will  have  done  with 
this  immoral  separation  of  thought  and 
character.  How  can  a  man  think  true 
who  is  false?  Men  do  what  they  do  and 
think  what  they  think  because  they  are 
what  they  are.  Our  minds  are  not  mech- 
anisms which  work  with  mathematical 
precision  irrespective  of  our  personal 
dispositions.  They  are  ourselves,  and  all 
that  we  are  shapes  them.  We  shall  see 
this  emphasised  more  and  more  among 


ii8  Christ  and  Life 

Christians,  however  difficult  it  makes  liv- 
ing. Truth  is  personal  and  vital,  and  not 
merely  opinion.  Ritschl  was  right  at 
least  in  insisting  upon  the  religious 
values  of  doctrines  and  refusing  to  build 
systems  out  of  bloodless  propositions. 
And  Paul  was  right  in  anchoring 
thought  in  being,  and  in  leaping  at  some 
defect  of  shortcoming  or  excess  in  char- 
acter or  life,  where  he  found  defect  in 
opinion.  Paul  preached  what  he  was  and 
had  experienced. 

"  There  is  no  beauty,"  as  Professor 
Royce  says,  "  no,  nor  any  truth,  in  a 
metaphysical  system  which  does  not 
spring  from  its  value  as  a  record  of  a 
spiritual  experience."  And  the  Chris- 
tian must  test  his  opinion  on  the  touch- 
stone of  his  character,  and  refuse  to 
recognise  the  thinking  faculties  as  inde- 
pendent of  the  moral  and  emotional  life. 

The  Christian,  while  thus  cordially 
surrendering  much  of  what  is  now  called 
the  freedom  of  opinion,  will  become  in 
reality  much  freer  in  his  opinions.  He 
will  smile  at  a  great  many  unexamined 


Christian  Thinking  119 

dicta  which  now  rule  men.  Such  a  half 
truth,  for  example,  as  our  proverb, 
"  Knowledge  is  power,"  he  will  cheer- 
fully denounce  as  a  half  lie.  All  knowl- 
edge is  not  power.  Some  ignorance  is 
vastly  more  powerful  than  some  knowl- 
edge.   There  is,  as  Milton  says,  a 

"  Knowledge  of  good  bought  dear  by  knowing 
ill," 

and  sometimes  the  price  to  a  true-souled 
man  is  prohibitive.  Charles  Lamb  did 
not  exhaust  the  list  of  "  popular 
fallacies." 

And  the  paradoxes  and  present  diffi- 
culties of  religious  opinion  will  have 
fewer  terrors  for  us.  If,  as  is  certainly 
true,  our  personal  life  can  not  absorb  the 
infinite  God,  neither  can  our  intellectual 
nature  comprehend  and  exhaust  Him. 
Why  should  our  failure  to  do  so  occa- 
sion us  the  least  concern  or  distress?  It 
would  be  distressing  rather  to  think 
through  God,  so  to  speak,  and  come  out 
on  the  other  side  with  no  more  object  of 
thought  beyond.     It  lies  in  the  very  idea 


I20  Christ  and  Life 

of  God  that  He  is  greater  than  we.  We 
shall  not  be  so  ambitious  that  we  can  not 
be  satisfied  with  a  God  greater  than  our 
thoughts.  And  so,  further,  the  neces- 
sary antinomies  of  thought,  when  we 
reason  out  of  our  experience  into  the 
transcendent,  will  give  us  no  perplexity. 
We  shall  smilingly  accept  them  and  over 
the  greatest  one  of  them  shall  say. 

"  Our  wills  are  ours  we  know  not  how, 
Our  wills  are  ours  to  make  them  Thine." 

Not  in  the  least  disconcerted  by  these 
paradoxes  over  which  our  fathers  quar- 
relled, insisting  on  believing  only  one  side 
or  the  other,  instead  of  both,  we  shall 
not  be  in  anywise  disturbed  by  the  honest 
search  of  honest  and  humble-hearted  men 
for  light  and  truth.  The  light  and  truth 
of  God  are  seeking  men  more  eagerly 
than  any  man  can  seek  them,  and  they 
are  not  to  be  feared.  And  as  for  prideful 
and  untrue  search,  it  will  be  as  incapa- 
ble of  finding  new  as  it  is  of  discredit- 
ing or  destroying  old  truth.  And  of 
How  little  consequence  in  reality  is  that 


Christian  Thinking  121 

which  is  to  be  found  in  comparison  with 
what  has  been  found  already!  The 
foundations  were  laid  long  ago  and  are 
neither  to  be  shaken  nor  to  be  relaid.  As 
Harnack  has  said,  in  "  Christianity  and 
History  " :  "  The  great  and  simple  truths 
which  Christ  came  to  preach,  the  per- 
sonal sacrifice  which  He  made  and  His 
victory  in  death  were  what  formed  the 
new  life  of  His  community ;  and  when  the 
apostle  Paul,  with  divine  power,  de- 
scribed this  life  as  a  life  in  the  Spirit, 
and  again  as  a  life  in  love,  he  was  only 
giving  back  the  light  which  had  dawned 
upon  him  in  and  through  Jesus  Christ, 
his  Lord." 

We  are  feeling  the  influence  of  a 
healthy  reaction  against  the  attempt  to 
codify  the  universe  in  a  human  system. 
Our  God,  who  is  great  enough  to  be  be- 
yond our  levelling  comprehension,  is 
great  enough  to  extend  beyond  our  sys- 
tems. Not  one  man  out  of  a  hundred 
thousand  can  carry  his  system  of  com- 
plete religious  speculation  with  him,  and 
not    one    out    of    a    thousand    can    sit 


122  Christ  and  Life 

down  and  write  it  out  articulately.  But 
this  emancipation  from  the  attempts  at 
the  impossible  which  only  mechanicalise 
and  devitalise  our  religious  thought  will 
not  excuse  us  from  honest  study  or  de- 
liver us  to  an  intellectual  license.  That 
thought  is  to  be  personal  and  vital  is  no 
excuse  for  its  ceasing  to  be  thought.  It 
is  easy  to  plead  what  is  practical  as  an 
excuse  from  what  is  thorough. 

The  Christian  man  must  think  himself. 
He  will  look  at  evidence  with  wide  open, 
level  eyes,  and  neither  party  cries,  nor 
the  taunt  of  those  whose  inclinations 
provide  them  with  prejudices  which  pass 
for  opinions,  nor  indolence  will  befog  his 
thought  or  make  him  satisfied  to  accept 
impressions  of  his  own,  or  assertions  of 
others  as  the  accredited  truth.  He  will 
give  heed  to  the  objects  of  thought  which 
Paul  specifies  in  the  last  chapter  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Philippians,  but  he  will  re- 
member, also,  that  on  these  things  Paul 
bade  men  to  do  some  thinking,  and  that 
the  point  of  his  admonition  is  lost  if  all 


Christian  Thinking  123 

the  emphasis  is  laid  on  "  these  things  " 
and  none  on  "  think." 

The  immense  mechanical  and  scientific 
changes  of  our  day  often  tempt  men  to 
think  that  very  Httle  is  established  and 
unmoved,  and  that  all  things  are  uncer- 
tain. The  right  temper  of  mind  is  alert 
progressiveness,  welcoming  change, 
ready  to  perceive  and  greet  each  fresh 
advance.  It  is  not  hard  to  exaggerate 
this  into  an  easy  contempt  for  what  has 
been.  And  some  suppose  the  temper  of 
the  coming  day  will  be  yet  more  progres- 
sive and  free  from  the  constraint  of  the 
past.  It  may  be  earnestly  hoped  that  it 
will  not  be  so.  What  is  all  that  has  been 
discovered  during  our  day  compared 
with  what  was  known  before? 

All  the  fresh  inventions  and  new 
knowledge  are  valuable,  but  before  they 
came  true  men  hated  lies,  and  true  hearts 
loved,  and  there  were  gentleness  and  un- 
selfishness and  strong  service  among 
men.  And  these  secrets  are  more  than 
mechanical  invention  and  improvements 


124  Christ  and  Life 

in  the  arts.  The  best  part  of  knowledge 
was  here  in  our  fathers'  day  and  the 
days  of  their  fathers  before  them.  And 
the  coming  men  will  understand  this  and 
not  lose  their  heads  in  the  idolatry  of 
innovation.  The  faith  was  once  given  to 
the  saints,  and  once  for  all,  and  though 
men  will  understand  it  better  from  age 
to  age  it  is  still  the  old  faith  of  divine 
love  and  human  duty. 

Let  us  hope  that  the  thought  of  the 
future  will  prove  more  modest.  We  are 
but  little  creatures,  reading  ourselves 
into  the  placid  universe  which  was  before 
us  and  will  be  after  us,  save  as  we  dis- 
cover our  littleness  in  ourselves  and  wake 
to  our  greatness  in  God.  Our  thoughts 
must  be  humble  and  contrite  as  our 
hearts. 

We  may  be  sure,  too,  that  however  the 
influences  of  education  may  appear  now 
to  be  working  toward  mechanical  ration- 
alism of  thought,  they  will  not  succeed  in 
killing  the  bloom  and  drying  the  blood  of 
life.  "  Religious  thinking,  ethical  think- 
ing,  poetical    thinking,    teleogical,    emo- 


Christian  Thinking  125 

tional,  sentimental  thinking,,  what  we 
might  call  the  personal  view  of  life,  to 
distinguish  it  from  the  impersonal  and 
mechanical,  and  the  romantic  view  of 
life,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  rational- 
istic view,  have  been,"  as  Professor 
James  says,  "  and  still  are,  outside  of 
well-drilled  scientific  circles,  the  domi- 
nant forms  of  thought."  There  will  be 
a  battle  necessary  to  keep  them  so.  The 
machine  shop  view  of  life,  which  some  of 
our  best  institutions  are  devoting  their 
energies  to  establish  and  extend,  is  gain- 
ing sway  over  the  virtues  of  men,  killing 
their  spring  and  beauty,  and  even  over 
the  vices  of  men,  too,  destroying  their 
hideousness  and  making  for  them  a 
philosophic  defense  as  the  springs  of  a 
richer  human  experience.  Against  all 
this  true  Christians  will  erect  the  fra- 
grant, poetical,  personal,  divinely  moral 
thought  of  life  for  which  Jesus  stood, 
and  of  which  He  is  ever  the  fountain  and 
the  guarantee. 

Our    Lord   Jesus    Christ    will    be   the 
norm  of  Christian  thought.     "  I  am  the 


126  Christ  and  Life 

Truth,"  He  is  still  saying.  And  the  true 
Christian  will  bring  every  thought  into 
captivity  to  His  obedience  and  will  dis- 
cover therein  perfect  liberty,  and 
heavenly  vision  and  all  the  treasures  of 
wisdom  and  knowledge  hidden.  He  will 
bring  his  mind  to  Christ  that  he  may 
make  the  mind  that  was  in  Christ  his 
own. 


XIII 

A  CHRISTIAN'S  THOUGHTS 

We  are  not  always  acting,  but  we  are 
always  thinking.  Yet  we  watch  our  acts, 
and  shape  them  carefully  lest  they  be 
wrong  and,  by  their  evil,  influence  us  to 
greater  evil.  Because  they  are  external, 
however,  and  because  they  are  occa- 
sional, they  scarcely  mold  us  as  our 
thoughts  mold  us,  which  are  most  inti- 
mate with  us  and  never  are  absent  from 
us.  Whoever  would  deal  with  what  most 
deeply  concerns  his  personal  life,  must 
deal  with  his  thoughts.  "  He  that  would 
govern  his  actions  by  the  laws  of 
virtue,"  wrote  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson, 
"  must  regulate  his  thoughts  by  those  of 
reason ;  he  must  keep  guilt  from  the 
recesses  of  his  heart,  and  remember  that 
the  pleasures  of  fancy  and  the  emotions 
of  desire  are  more  dangerous  as  they  are 
127 


128  Christ  and  Life 

hidden,  since  they  escape  the  sense  of 
observation,  and  operate  equally  in  every 
situation,  without  the  concurrence  of 
external  opportunities." 

This  was  what  Jesus  told  the  Phari- 
sees and  scribes.  They  were  most  care- 
ful about  matters  of  purely  external  be- 
havior, conformity  to  petty,  exacting 
standards  of  propriety  and  conduct.  He 
bade  them  to  give  heed  to  the  real  source 
of  evil  and  weakness  in  life.  "  The 
things  which  proceed  out  of  the  mouth 
come  forth  out  of  the  heart;  and  they 
defile  the  man.  For  out  of  the  heart 
come  forth  evil  thoughts :  .  .  .  but  to 
eat  with  unwashen  hands  defileth  not  the 
man."  We  are  full  of  care  for  the  outer 
crust  of  life.  Jesus  is  heedless  of  it.  He 
goes  straight  to  its  core.  What  men  do, 
He  knows,  will  be  determined  by  what 
they  are  in  the  inmost  chambers  of  their 
imagination  and  desire.  Even  though 
the  outer  acts  be  for  a  time  blameless, 
the  life  is  unworthy  if  there  is  unworthi- 
ness  in  its  secret  places.  Nor  can  it  long 
confine    and    conceal    the    unworthiness 


A  Christian's  Thoughts       129 

there.  But  even  if  it  could,  it  would  be 
unworthy  to  have  anything  that  could 
not  be  revealed.  Marcus  Aurelius  held 
this  high  ideal.  "  Accustom  yourself," 
he  said,  "jto  think  upon  nothing  but  what 
you  could  freel}'  reveal,  if  the  question 
were  put  to  you;  so  that  if  your  soul 
were  laid  open,  there  would  appear  noth- 
ing but  what  was  sincere,  good-natured, 
and  public  spirited — not  so  much  as  one 
voluptuous  or  luxurious  fancy,  nothing 
of  hatred,  envy,  or  unreasonable  sus- 
picion, nor  aught  else  that  you  could  not 
bring  to  the  light  without  blushing." 

Every  day  we  are  becoming  more  like 
our  thoughts.  If  they  are  mean  and  self- 
ish, we  can  not  prevent  ourselves  from 
becoming  so.  If  they  are  unclean  and 
evil,  our  character  and  conduct  will  in- 
evitably be  shaped  by  them.  It  is  true 
that  "  as  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart  so 
is  he."  As  Charles  Kingsley  says: 
"  Think  about  yourself ;  about  what  you 
want,  what  you  like,  what  respect  peo- 
ple ought  to  pay  you,  and  then  to  you 
nothing  will  be  pure.    You  will  spoil  ev- 


130  Christ  and  Life 

erything  you  touch ;  you  will  make  sin 
and  misery  for  yourself  out  of  every- 
thing which  God  sends  you ;  you  will  be 
as  wretched  as  you  choose,  on  earth  or  in 
heaven  either."  And  on  the  other  hand, 
loving  thoughts  will  produce  loving  acts, 
and  a  generous,  kindly  way  of  regarding 
others  in  our  own  minds  will  bring  us  to 
a  generous,  kindly  treatment  of  them  in 
daily  life. 

We' have  to  think,  whether  we  choose 
to  do  50  or  not.  As  Sir  W.  Temple  says, 
"  Man  is  a  thinking  being,  whether  he 
will  or  no ;  all  he  can  do  is  to  turn  his 
thoughts  the  best  way."  As  soon  as  we 
wake  in  the  morning  our  thoughts  begin. 
We  cannot  stop  thinking  any  minute  dur- 
ing the  day.  The  attempt  to  stop  is  a 
sure  way  to  make  the  mind  more  active 
still. 

Of  what  shall  we  think?  Satan  is  al- 
wavs  suggesting  evil  thoughts.  Often  in 
our  best  hours,  in  prayer  or  even  at  the 
Lord's  Supper,  some  wrong  imagination 
will  flash  upon  us.  We  can  not  under- 
stand why  it  should  have  come.    We  can 


A  Christian's  Thoughts      131 

prevent  its  staying  with  us.  "  I  can  not 
prevent  foul  birds  from  flying  over  my 
head,"  said  an  old  Christian,  "  but  I 
can  prevent  them  from  building  their 
nests  in  my  hair."  And  how  may  such 
evil  thoughts  be  driven  away?  Not  by 
fighting  with  them.  The  more  we 
wrestle  with  them  the  tighter  they  grip 
us. 

They  can  only  be  driven  away  by  dis- 
placement. We  can  thrust  them  out  with 
good  thoughts.  This  was  the  way  John 
Bunyan,  as  he  tells  us,  came  to  write 
"  Pilgrim's  Progress." 

"Nor  did  I  intend 
But  to  divert  myself  in  doing  this 
From  worser  thoughts,  which  make  me  do 

amiss." 

When  an  evil  imagination  or  a  frivolous 
or  envious  thought  or  a  sinful  coveting 
or  any  wrong  desire  comes  into  the  mind, 
ignore  it  and  turn  your  mind  at  once 
upon  some  stronger  and  nobler  object 
fitted  to  command  and  captivate  your 
thoughts.      This    was    Lewis    Carroll's 


132  Christ  and  Life 

counsel.  He  wrote,  explaining  his  mo- 
tive in  writing  "  Pillow  Problems  " : 
"  Perhaps  I  may  venture  for  a  moment  to 
use  a  more  serious  tone  and  to  point  out 
that  there  are  mental  troubles  much  worse 
than  mere  worry,  for  which  an  absorbing 
object  of  thought  may  serve  as  a  remedy. 
There  are  skeptical  thoughts  which  seem 
for  the  moment  to  uproot  the  firmest 
faith;  there  are  blasphemous  thoughts 
which  dart  unbidden  into  the  most  rever- 
ent souls ;  there  are  unholy  thoughts 
which  torture  with  their  hateful  presence 
the  fancy  that  would  fain  be  pure.  Against 
all  these  some  real  mental  work  is  a  most 
helpful  ally.  That  '  unclean  spirit '  of 
the  parable,  who  brought  back  with  him 
seven  others  more  wicked  than  himself, 
only  did  so  because  he  found  the  cham- 
ber '  swept  and  garnished  '  and  its  owner 
sitting  with  folded  hands.  Had  he  found 
it  all  alive  with  the  '  busy  hum  '  of  active 
*  work  '  there  would  have  been  scant  wel- 
come for  him  and  his  seven."  Obey 
Paul's  injunction  to  "  bring  every  thought 
into  obedience  to  the  captivity  of  Christ." 


A  Christian's  Thoughts      133 

He  is  able  to  subdue  all  our  thoughts, 
and  to  expel  from  them  everything  that 
can  not  live  in  His  presence. 

Our  thoughts  are  our  innermost  life. 
We  carry  them  with  us  and  can  not  es- 
cape from  them.  In  them  we  can  have 
always  the  richest  companionships. 
"  They  are  never  alone,"  says  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  "  that  are  accompanied  with 
noble  thoughts."  Or  we  may  have  in 
them  the  most  wretched  associates  from 
whom  we  can  not  flee.  Have  you  learned 
to  be  content  when  alone  with  your  own 
mind  ?  or  do  you  flee  from  such  solitude, 
seeking  something  to  divert  you  or  to 
occupy  you  ?  Jesus  had  no  fear  of  being 
alone.  He  could  sit  for  hours  on  the 
hillside  looking  out  over  the  fields  and 
the  streams  and  the  distant  sea.  The 
flowers  at  His  feet  held 

"Thoughts   that   did   often   lie   too  deep   for 
tears," 

and  spoke  to  Him  of  the  care  and  the 
perfect  workmanship  of  the  Father.  The 
winds  suggested  to  Him  the  unseen  mov- 


134  Christ  and  Life 

ings  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  Yonder  little 
lambs  and  the  sheep,  and  the  shepherd 
bearing  in  his  arms  the  weak  ones  of  the 
flock,  spoke  to  His  heart  of  that  Shepherd 
love  and  care  which  found  its  best  illus- 
tration in  Him.  Life  was  not  an  empty, 
prosaic  thing  to  Jesus.  It  can  be  a  rich 
joy  to  us  if  we  love  to  think,  and  to  think 
especially  about  all  the  meanings  of  God. 

One  great  mistake  which  we  make  in 
our  thoughts  lies  in  our  willingness  to 
let  them  drift  or  settle  upon  ourselves. 
We  think  of  our  plans,  our  possessions, 
our  moods,  our  acts,  our  failures.  Some- 
times we  do  this  with  deliberate  atten- 
tion, and  again  our  minds  just  wander 
hither  because  there  is  no  strong  hand  on 
the  tiller  guiding  them  elsewhere.  Now 
drifting  is  a  bad  thing  in  every  part  of 
our  lives,  and  it  is  bad  and  damaging  in 
our  thoughts.  It  takes  away  the  power 
of  application  and  sustained  reasoning 
and  it  usually  ends  in  our  filling  our 
thoughts  with  what  is  unworthy. 

God  is  the  proper  object  of  our 
thought.    "  We  must  converse  with  our- 


A  Christian's  Thoughts       135 

selves  only  of  God,"  says  Pascal.  We 
should  love  to  fix  our  minds  on  Him  and 
to  think  of  His  goodness,  His  love,  His 
great  deeds  for  us,  and  His  constant 
present  interest  in  us.  We  think  of  our 
love  of  God  or  of  our  service  of  God.  It 
is  right  to  do  this  sometimes,  but  it  is 
certain  to  depress  and  belittle  us  if  our 
thoughts  are  true ;  for  how  cold  is  our 
love  of  God,  and  how  poor  is  our  service ! 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  an  expansive 
and  ennobling  thing  to  meditate  upon 
the  greatness  of  God's  love  for  us  and 
the  splendid  breadth  and  depth  of  His 
service  for  us.  If,  as  Marcus  Aurelius 
says,  "  Our  life  is  what  our  thoughts 
make  it,"  then  the  surest  road  to  godli- 
ness is  to  think  upon  God  and  to  do  this 
attentively. 

Yet  few  of  us  can  be  always  holding 
our  thoughts  under  strict  rule.  They 
will  drift  away  to  their  own  place.  What 
is  that  place  with  us  ?  With  some  it  may 
be  fashions  of  dress,  with  others  invest- 
ments, with  others  books,  with  others 
vices,    with    others    friends.      Wherever 


136  Christ  and  Life 

our  treasure  is  there  our  heart  and  our 
thoughts  will  be.  If  Christ  is  our  true 
treasure,  He  will  be  the  natural  place  of 
our  thoughts,  and  whenever  released 
from  the  pressure  of  this  or  that  absorb- 
ing duty,  they  will  slip  away  to  Him. 
He  is  far  better  than  any  thing  or  any 
other  person  to  think  upon,  and  He  has 
that  compelling  power  which  holds  us  in 
a  captivity  as  strong  as  it  is  sweet. 

Have  you  thought  of  Jesus  once  to- 
day? Each  day  should  begin  with  sweet 
thoughts  of  Christ,  and  there  should  be 
set  times  in  it  for  recalling  Him,  and  He 
should  have  the  last  thoughts  of  all.  By 
such  discipline,  at  last  even  our  dreams 
may  gather  round  Him.  In  truth,  very 
few  people  ever  dream  of  Christ,  because 
few  think  enough  about  Him  during  the 
day.  But  life  becomes  a  new  thing  when 
Jesus  wins  lordship  over  its  unordered 
thoughts  and  the  mind  turns  to  Him  as  its 
true  resting  place  and  home.  And  He  is 
Himself  the  source  of  all  fair  and  sweet 
things. 

The  great  counsel  of  Paul,  "  Whatso- 


A  Christian's  Thoughts      137 

ever  things  are  true,  whatsoever  things 
are  honest,  whatsoever  things  are  just, 
whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever 
things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are 
of  good  report ;  if  there  be  any  virtue, 
and  if  there  be  any  praise,  think  on  these 
things"  (Phil,  iv:  8),  may  be  reduced 
for  us  to  the  simple  rule,  Think  on 
Christ.  That  is  the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter.  And  it  is  the  beginning  of 
such  blessed  things  as  few  know. 


XIV 

THE   PLACE   AND   POWER  OF 
HABITS 

Life  is  of  necessity  a  large  part  habit. 
As  soon  as  we  begin  to  live  we  begin  to 
form  habits.  Breathing  becomes  an  un- 
conscious custom,  and  moves  smoothly 
on  by  day  and  by  night.  We  fall  into 
innumerable  personal  ways  that  are  pe- 
culiar to  us  alone,  and  betray  us.  Acts 
done  at  first  at  random,  or  with  but  oc- 
casional will,  are  repeated  until  the  habit 
of  doing  them  becomes  set  with  us.  A 
moment's  thought  upon  our  life  will 
show  each  of  us 

"  How  use  doth  breed  a  habit  in  a  man." 

And  how  much  of  our  life  is  made  up  of 
unthinking    obedience    to    such    habits. 
"  Habit,"  says  Carlyle,  "  is  the  deepest 
law  of  human  nature." 
138 


The  Place  and  Power  of  Habits    139 

Jesus  had  His  habits.  He  made  it  His 
habit  to  do  always  the  will  of  His  Father. 
He  had  acquired  the  custom  of  going  to 
the  Nazareth  synagogue  on  Sabbaths  and 
reading  the  Scripture  lessons.  Luke 
iv :  16.  It  was  His  wont  to  talk  to  the 
people  when  they  gathered  to  Him.  Mark 
x:i.  And  there  were  certain  places 
where  it  was  His  habit  to  go  with  regu- 
larity.   Luke  xxii :  39. 

Our  habits  hold  for  us  the  secret  of 
joy  and  liberty,  or  of  sorrow  and  slavery 
in  life.  On  the  one  hand  by  carelessness 
or  by  the  deliberate  choice  of  evil  acts, 
one  after  another,  we  can  bind  ourselves 
in  the  most  hopeless  bondage.  The  ter- 
rible thing  about  such  servitude  is  the 
insidiousness  of  its  approach.  As  Dry- 
den  says : 

"  111  habits  gather  by  unseen  degrees, — 
As  brooks  make  rivers,  rivers  run  to  seas." 

An  evil  imagination  or  wrong  desire  is 
cherished  once.  The  second  time  it 
comes  back  more  easily  and  lingers 
longer.      The    third    time    resistance    is 


140  Christ  and  Life 

feebler  still.  Soon  all  struggle  ceases 
and  the  freedom  of  purity  is  gone.  It  is 
so  also  with  unholy  or  unlovely  acts.  As 
John  Foster  says  in  his  Journal,  "  The 
mind  is  weak  where  it  has  once  given 
way.  It  is  long  before  a  principle  re- 
stored can  become  as  firm  as  one  that 
has  never  been  moved.  It  is  as  the  case 
of  the  mound  of  a  reservoir;  if  the 
mound  has  in  one  place  been  broken, 
whatever  care  has  been  taken  to  make 
the  repaired  part  as  strong  as  possible, 
the  probability  is  that  if  it  gives  way 
again,  it  will  be  in  that  place."  Bishop 
Whately  also  speaks  of  this :  "  It  is  im- 
portant to  keep  in  mind  that  habits  are 
formed,  not  at  one  stroke,  but  gradu- 
ally and  insensibly ;  so  that  unless  vigi- 
lant care  be  employed,  a  great  change 
may  come  over  the  character  without 
our  being  conscious  of  any.  For,  as 
Doctor  Johnson  has  well  expressed  it, 
'  The  diminutive  chains  of  habit  are  sel- 
dom heavy  enough  to  be  felt,  till  they 
are  too  strong  to  be  broken.'  " 

The  only   sure  ways  to  conquer  evil 


The  Place  and  Power  of  Habits   141 

habits  are  to  frustrate  them  in  their  be- 
ginning, and  to  occupy  the  ground  with 
good.  To  escape  the  habit  of  evil 
thoughts,  do  not  read  books  or  look  at 
pictures  which  suggest  them.  To  escape 
the  habit  of  fault-finding,  of  uncharitable 
judgments,  refuse  to  discover  or  to  dwell 
upon  the  defects  of  others.  Every  habit 
begins  as  an  act.  Even  if  the  first  battle 
is  lost  make  a  great  deal  of  it,  and  enter 
the  next  one  with  indomitable  purpose, 
and  do  not  lose  that  one.  A  victory  there 
will  hurl  the  incipient  habit  back  upon  it- 
self in  ruin.  "  Those  who  are  in  the 
power  of  evil  habits  must  conquer  as 
they  can, — and  conquered  they  must  be, 
or  neither  wisdom  nor  happiness  can  be 
attained ; — but  those  who  are  not  yet 
subject  to  their  influence  may,  by  timely 
caution,  preserve  their  freedom ;  they 
may  effectually  resolve  to  escape  the  ty- 
rant whom  they  will  very  vainly  resolve 
to  conquer." 

But  how  can  evil  habits  be  conquered 
when  once  formed?  Well,  if  Christ  is 
to  save  men  He  must  be  able  to  save  them 


i/\.l  Christ  and  Life 

here.  He  sharpens  the  discernment  of 
the  act  which  lies  at  the  root  of  the 
habit,  and  He  begins  in  the  will  of  His 
disciple  a  battle  against  such  acts,  taken 
one  by  one.  But  beyond  that,  He  begins 
a  rear  attack  on  evil  habit  by  pushing  out 
upon  the  ground  thus  occupied  the  forces 
of  good  habit.  Against  the  habit  of  evil 
thought  He  leads  the  will  in  a  resolute 
struggle  with  each  separate  suggestion 
as  it  creeps  up  out  of  the  swamps  like 
miasma ;  but,  also,  He  creates  the  habit 
of  sweet  thought  upon  Christ,  who  is 
the  most  compelling  object  of  thought 
our  minds  can  know.  By  and  by  we  be- 
come strong  enough  to  defeat  habit  in 
part  by  taking  its  soldiers  one  by  one, 
when,  lo!  the  army  of  our  adversary  is 
gone,  for  the  host  of  good  habit  from 
behind  has  cleared  the  field. 

It  is  a  splendid  truth  that  good  habits 
grow  just  as  bad  habits  grow,  by 
easy  and  unconscious  increase.  A 
Christian  boy  refuses  to  lie.  Again 
the  temptation  comes,  and  he  refuses 
with  steady  heart.    Again  the  temptation 


The  Place  and  Power  of  Habits   143 

knocks,  but  the  lad  never  hears.  His 
habit  of  truthfulness  has  made  the  temp- 
tation to  lie  no  temptation  to  him.  And 
this  is  the  liberty  of  noble  habit.  It  lifts 
us  above  all  the  temptations  whose  vic- 
tory over  us  would  result  in  the  con- 
trary habits  of  evil.  A  pure  home,  pure 
friends,  pure  books,  and  a  pure  heart, 
carry  the  man  who  has  been  blessed  with 
them  through  defilement  and  stain,  and 
they  never  touch  his  spirit.  He  scarcely 
knows  that  he  has  been  surrounded  by 
them. 

There  is  a  sort  of  automatic  moral  in- 
tegrity about  upright  habits.  They  make 
evil  actions  impossible.  The  man  who  is 
set  in  such  habits  has  no  need  to  think 
over  and  reason  out  his  course  of  action. 
His  moral  conscience  is  so  clear  in  its  in- 
tegrity that  it  acts  for  him  spontaneously. 
When  a  true  man  is  solicited  to  do  evil, 
firm  habit  takes  him  by  force  and  wheels 
him  about,  and  before  he  knows  it  has 
swept  him  out  of  harm's  way.  The 
man  is  in  danger  who  has  to  reason  over 
the  simple  question  of  truth  and  purity. 


144  Christ  and  Life 

If  truth  and  purity  have  become  habits 
of  his  will  they  will  act  before  he  can 
think.  Good  habit  makes  the  elementary 
problems  of  the  moral  life  nondebatable 
and  the  primary  moral  judgments  instan- 
taneous and  irresistible. 

This  is  the  liberty  of  good  habits  which 
contrasts  with  the  slavery  of  evil  habit. 
This  is  what  Lord  Brougham  had  in 
mind  when  he  said :  "  I  trust  everything 
under  God,  to  habit,  upon  which,  in  all 
of  us,  the  lawgiver  as  well  as  the  school- 
master has  mainly  placed  his  reliance; 
habit  which  makes  everything  easy  and 
casts  all  difficulties  upon  the  deviation 
from  a  wonted  course.  Make  sobriety  a 
habit,  and  intemperance  will  be  hateful; 
make  prudence  a  habit,  and  reckless  prof- 
ligacy will  be  as  contrary  to  the  nature 
of  the  child,  grown  or  adult,  as  the  most 
atrocious  crimes  are  to  any  of  us." 
Doing  good,  telling  the  truth,  loving  the 
clean,  hating  the  foul,  soon  become  hab- 
its, and  the  temptations  to  selfishness,  to 
falsehood,  to  impurity,  fall  off  from  us 
without  awaking  in  us  the  least  response. 


The  Place  and  Power  of  Habits   145 

Habit  is  not  a  matter  of  the  intellec- 
tual or  moral  life  alone.  We  acquire 
spiritual  habits  also.  Prayer  can  become 
a  habit.  Prayerlessness  can  become  a 
habit.  The  sense  of  God's  presence  can 
become  an  habitual  consciousness.  We 
can  drift  into  the  habit  of  forgetfulness 
of  God.  We  can  acquire  the  habit  of 
Bible  love  and  Bible  study,  or  can  habit- 
ually neglect  the  Book  whose  neglect 
means  starvation  of  soul.  Men  have 
trained  themselves  into  the  habit  of  ma- 
terialism. To  them  no  fact  is  a  fact  that 
is  not  a  physical  fact.  Other  men  have 
acquired  the  habit  of  perceiving  the  spir- 
itual significance  of  all  things  and  of 
reading  life  in  terms  of  the  spirit.  We 
can  slip  into  the  habit  of  self-will,  or  we 
can  learn  to  sing  truly  to  God — 

"  To  do  Thy  will  the  habit  of  my  heart." 

The  very  purpose  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
in  dealing  with  us  is  to  school  us  into 
the  habits  of  Christ;  not  to  spur  us  to 
an  isolated  act  of  righteousness,  but  to  es- 
tablish us  in  holy  and  noble  ways. 


146  Christ  and  Life 

Indeed,  Christianity  was  from  the  be- 
ginning called  a  way,  i.  c,  a  custom,  a 
habit.  Jesus  taught  "  the  ways  of  God." 
He  called  Himself  "The  Way."  Paul 
spoke  of  the  new  teachings  as  "  that 
way."  He  had  himself,  when  he  became 
a  Christian,  certain  "  ways  in  Christ," 
which  he  taught  everywhere  in  every 
church.  Christianity  is  the  habit  of  love, 
the  habit  of  service,  the  habit  of  right- 
eousness, the  habit  of  holiness.  It  is  not 
a  spasm  of  sentiment,  or  of  activity.  It 
is  a  character  of  truth  and  purity 
wrought  by  the  Spirit  of  Christ  out  of 
those  habits  which  are  the  ways  of  Jesus. 

Each  one  of  us  is  strengthening  every 
day  his  habits  of  body,  mind,  and  spirit ; 
and  these  habits  are  every  day  making 
or  undoing  us.  We  have  in  them  an  en- 
ginery of  almost  limitless  power  for  evil 
or  for  good.  We  make  choice  between 
the  ways  of  God  and  the  ways  of  sin. 
We  do  this  in  each  act,  and  the  multitude 
of  such  choices  creates  a  habit ;  and  these 
ways  have  their  ends,  and  the  end  of  the 
habit  of  sin  is  death,  and  the  end  of  the 


The  Place  and  Power  of  Habits   147 

way  of  God  is  life.  Yea,  and  more  than 
this.  What  Hes  at  the  end  of  each  way 
lies  along  each  way.  The  death  that 
is  the  end  of  the  habit  of  evil  is  in  each 
act  of  evil ;  and  the  life  that  is  in  the  end 
of  the  habit  of  good  is  in  each  act  of 
good.  Our  habits  bring  us  at  the  last 
to  that  which  is  in  principle  in  each  sep- 
arate act  by  which  the  habit  was  formed, 
and  in  which  it  expresses  itself. 

The  only  way  for  each  disciple  of 
Christ  is  the  way  of  God,  the  way  of 
holiness;  that  is  the  way  of  those  who 
hear  the  call  to  divine  habits  in  the  words 
of  Jesus,  "  Ye  therefore  sliall  be  perfect 
as  your  heavenly  Father  is  perfect." 


XV 

CHRISTIAN  FEELING 

If  one  sets  forth  the  legitimacy  of  re- 
ligious feeling,  it  is  not  through  any  de- 
sire to  discredit  thought,  but  only  to 
claim  for  the  feelings  a  place  which  is 
rightly  theirs,  but  from  which  many  are 
seeking  to  exclude  them,  partly  because 
of  their  admitted  dangers  of  excess,  and 
partly  because  of  an  undue  exaltation  of 
our  opinionative  nature.  By  what  right 
is  our  whole  personality,  emotional  and 
volitional,  subjected  to  opinion?  Who 
has  demonstrated  that  opinion  is  the  in- 
fallible guide?  Who  has  proved  that 
feeling  has  led  more  men  astray  than 
opinion?  Opinion  is  not  the  cool,  unbi- 
assed, infallible  thing  the  temper  of  our 
day  supposes  it.  There  is,  at  least,  as 
much  intellectual  heresy  and  insanity 
turrent  as  emotional. 
Z4S 


Christian  Feeling  149 

I  am  not  trying  to  make  out  a  case  for 
the  superiority  of  any  one  part  of  our  life 
over  another,  least  of  all  to  the  disadvan- 
tage of  thought  as  the  necessary  check 
and  balance  wheel  of  life;  but  merely 
representing  that  the  narrow-minded 
and  unphilosophical  course  is  that  of 
those  who  would  turn  us  into  scientific 
thinking  machines,  with  emotion  and 
will  and  all  the  richness  of  our  person- 
ality in  perpetual  ostracism.  If  they  suc- 
ceeded we  should  have  a  very  prosaic 
time  sitting  on  the  crust  of  life,  with 
dust  in  our  veins  instead  of  blood.  Not 
so! 

"  Thought  is  deeper  than  all  speech, 
Feeling  deeper  than  all  thought; 
Souls  to  souls  can  never  teach 
What  unto  themselves   was  taught. 

"  We  are  spirits  clad  in  veils ; 
Man  by  man  was  never  seen; 
All  our  deep  communing  fails 
To  remove  the  shadowy  screen." 

We  need  not  then  be  ashamed  of  our 
feelings  or  conceal  them  or  endeavor  to 
discredit  or  suppress  them.     As  Pascal 


150  Christ  and  Life 

says,  "  The  heart  has  reasons  which  the 
reason  does  not  know.  It  is  the  heart 
that  feels  God,  not  the  reason.  There 
are  truths  that  are  felt,  and  there  are 
truths  that  are  proved,  for  we  know  truth 
not  only  by  the  reason,  but  by  that  in- 
stinctive conviction  which  may  be  called 
the  heart.  The  primary  truths  are  not 
demonstrable,  and  yet  our  knowledge  of 
them  is  none  the  less  certain.  Principles 
are  felt ;  propositions  are  proved.  Truths 
may  be  above  reason,  and  yet  not  be  con- 
trary to  reason."  Feeling  should  be  given 
its  just  place  as  an  organ  of  knowledge, 
supplying  its  own  measure,  correcting 
the  error  of  the  opinionative  nature,  and 
saving  us  to  our  real  life.  With  what 
one  of  us  has  it  not  done  this? 

"  If  e'er  when  faith  had  fallen  asleep, 
I  heard  a  voice,  '  Believe  no  more,' 
And  heard  an  ever  breaking  shore 
That  tumbled  in  the  godless  deep; 

"  A  warmth  within  the  breast  would  melt 
The  freezing  reason's  colder  part, 
And  like  a  man  in  wrath,  the  heart 
Stood  up  and  answered,  '  I  have  felt ! ' " 


Christian  Feeling  151 

There  is  a  constant  oscillation  in  life 
between  the  extreme  of  emphasis  on  the 
objective  fact  recognised  by  reason,  and 
the  extreme  of  emphasis  on  the  subjec- 
tive fact  recognised  by  feeling.  But  the 
true  life  is  the  one  that  never  loses  either 
emphasis.  Jesus  is  the  historic  Saviour 
of  man  and  the  present  Lord  of  life,  un- 
conditioned as  to  His  existence  by  any 
personal  recognition  by  man.  And  tlie 
work  that  He  did  and  is  doing  is  in  one 
aspect  an  objective  work,  independent  of 
human  acceptance  and  experience.  But 
He  is  also  the  present  indwelling  Life, 
apprehended  by  a  range  of  faculties  not 
exercised  upon  the  material  world,  and 
the  true  Christian  knows  Him  in  a  true 
and  precious  mysticism. 

The  word  "  mysticism "  should  not 
terrify  Christians.  And  no  charge  of 
emotional  excess  and  unreliability,  or  of 
disregard  of  the  objective  foundations  of 
spiritual  truth,  or,  to  use  Law's  words, 
"  of  setting  up  an  inward  Saviour  in 
opposition  to  that  outward  Christ  whose 
history  is  recorded  in  the  Gospel  "  should 


152  Christ  and  Life 

dismay  him.  For,  to  quote  Law's  reply : 
"  Was  I  to  say  that  a  plant,  a  vegetable, 
must  have  the  sun  within  it,  must  have 
the  life,  light  and  virtues  of  the  sun  in- 
corporated in  it,  that  it  has  no  benefit 
from  the  sun  till  the  sun  is  thus  inwardly 
forming,  generating,  quickening  and 
raising  up  a  life  of  the  sun's  virtues  in 
it,  would  this  be  setting  up  an  inward 
sun  in  opposition  to  the  outward  one? 
Could  anything  be  more  ridiculous  than 
such  a  charge?  For  is  not  all  that  is 
here  said  of  an  inward  sun  in  the  vege- 
table so  much  said  of  a  power  and  virtue 
derived  from  the  sun  in  the  firmament? 
So,  in  like  manner,  all  that  is  said  of  an 
inward  Christ,  inwardly  formed  and  gen- 
erated in  the  root  of  the  soul,  is  only 
so  much  said  of  an  inward  life,  brought 
forth  by  the  power  and  efficacy  of  that 
blessed  Christ  who  was  born  of  the  Vir- 
gin Mary." 

Unconcealedly  yielding  to  Christ  the 
rule  of  his  feelings,  he  who  is  Christ's 
should  desire  to  resemble  Christ  in 
his  feelings.     The  moral  must  transcend 


Christian  Feeling  153 

the  aesthetic  in  his  tastes.  If  what  he 
believes  to  be  true  and  what  the  world 
believes  to  be  beautiful  conflict,  he  will 
prefer  his  truth  to  its  beauty.  "  Fair  " 
with  him  will  be  the  synonym  of  "  pure." 
He  will  combine  if  he  can  a  right  inde- 
pendence with  a  delicate  sensitiveness. 
One  of  the  sayings  of  the  late  Master  of 
Balliol,  preserved  in  his  "  Letters,"  was 
that  "  sensitiveness  is  a  great  hindrance 
to  action — other  men  who  have  their  own 
ends  in  view  and  perceive  that  you  are 
sensitive  will  not  desist  from  hurting 
you.  It  may  be  partly  overcome.  It  has 
some  compensating  advantages.  One 
enters  more  into  the  thoughts  of  other 
people."  "  F ,"  wrote  General  Gor- 
don to  his  sister,  "  is  more  humble  and 
better  tempered  than  I  am,  and  in  conse- 
quence he  is  sometimes  bullied  about 
things,  so  tell  him  to  stick  up  more." 
To  combine  these  things — a  virile 
strength  of  assertion  and  a  gentle  sensi- 
tiveness— will  be  a  hard  task,  not  likely 
to  be  attempted  by  any  outside  of  Christ's 
school,  but  obligatory  upon  those  within. 


154  Christ  and  Life 

They  will  be  praying  always,  "  In  the 
gentleness  of  Christ,  O  Christ,  my  soul 
array,"  but  also,  "  Help  me  to  quit  my- 
self like  a  man  and  be  strong." 

A  great  wretchedness  of  much  of  our 
present  religious  feeling  is  its  excess  of 
self-consciousness.  We  feel  and  then  we 
feel  that  we  feel.  This  kills  naturalness. 
The  autobiographical  analysis  feeds  this 
sort  of  thing,  and  the  tone  of  our  com- 
monplace conversation,  so  much  about 
people,  cultivates  the  habit  of  self-con- 
sideration. Somehow  we  shall  have  to 
learn  how  to  keep  the  proper  checks  on 
feeling  and  yet  have  it  natural  and  free. 
The  rule  of  great  principles  over  the  feel- 
ing will  help  us  here.  When  we  love 
what  is  worthy  with  a  controlling  love, 
we  shall  think  not  of  our  love,  but  of  the 
worthiness  of  its  object.  And,  on  the 
other  hand,  great  hatreds  will  absorb  in 
loathing  of  the  hateful  thing  all  half-the- 
atrical consciousness  of  self. 

And  there  will  be  more  and  more  need 
of  great  hatreds.  Our  talk  of  charity 
and  tolerance  must  not  blind  us  to  the 


Christian  Feeling  155 

call  for  bitterness  and  wrath  against  all 
unrighteousness   and   ungodliness.     The 
true  Christian  must  know  how  to   feel 
contempt  as  well  as  admiration  and  de- 
testation as  well  as  love.    It  is  related  of 
old  Joshua  Leavitt  that  once  he  greeted 
an  advocate  of  the  free  love  abomination 
who  came  to  see  him  with  the  words, 
"  Sir,  I  abhor  you,  I  abhor  you,  I  abhor 
you."     "  Do  not  I  hate  them  which  hate 
Thee?"  asks  David,  and  rephes,  "Yea, 
I   hate   them   with   perfect   hatred."     It 
was  wrong  to  hate  them  as  persons,  but 
it  was  wrong  to  do  other  than  hate  their 
hatred  of  God.     Soft  and  easy  toleration 
of  everything  will  be  called  by  the  hon- 
est names  of  treason  and  dishonor.     To 
apologise  for  lust  and  sin  is  to  become 
partner  with  it,  and  every  Christian  will 
feel  a  holy  horror  of  all  such  guilt  and 
an  utter  anger  against  all  that  worketh 
abomination  or  that  maketh  a  He.     No 
feeling  of  love  for  the  pure  can  long  sur- 
vive a  decadence  of  the  feeling  of  hatred 
of  the  impure. 

The    dominant    characteristic    of    the 


156  Christ  and  Life 

right  feelings  of  Christians  is  not  new.  It 
is  simply  the  Christian  passion  of  all  the 
ages — a  great  tenderness  towards  Christ, 
a  love  of  His  beauty  and  His  gentleness. 
"  It  seems  to  me,"  says  one  of  Miss 
Fowler's  characters,  "  that  nowadays 
men  think  and  talk  too  much  about  im- 
proving their  own  characters  and  medi- 
tate too  little  upon  the  perfection  of  the 
Divine  Character."  We  shall  in  the  com- 
ing time  think  more  of  Him  in  humil- 
ity and  human  love,  and  perhaps  we  can 
succeed  in  escaping  from  the  lofty  am- 
bitiousness  of  our  present  days  into  the 
trustfulness  of  a  child's  ways  and  speak 
and  feel  towards  Christ  as  Father  Tabb's 
little  Child  on  Calvary : 

"  The  cross  is  tall 

And  I  too  small, 

To  reach  His  hand 

Or  touch  His  feet ; 

But  on  the  sand 
His  footprints  I  have  found, 

And  it  is  sweet 
To  kiss  the  holy  ground." 


XVI 

THE  SELFISHNESS  OF  SORROW 

The  Saviour,  who  constantly  forgot 
Himself  for  the  sake  of  men,  found  Him- 
self constantly  forgotten  by  men  for 
their  own  sakes.  In  the  Garden  of  Geth- 
semane,  "  when  the  world  was  most  in 
need  of  a  loyal  Master,  and  when  loyalty 
cost  an  unspeakable  price,  Christ  was 
true.  When  the  Master  was  most  in 
need  of  friends,  and  when  friendship  was 
made  easy  and  almost  inevitable  by  the 
tender  solicitations  of  the  divine  sufferer, 
the  disciples  were  false."  And  before 
He  came  to  Gethsemane,  while  He  in  His 
sorrow  thought  upon  the  sorrows  of  His 
disciples,  they  in  their  sorrow  forgot  to 
think  upon  His.  "  None  of  you  asketh 
me,  Whither  goest  Thou?  "  he  says  sadly. 
"  But  because  I  have  spoken  these  things 
unto  you,  sorrow  hath  filled  your  heart." 
157 


158  Christ  and  Life 

Their  thought  fixed  itself  upon  their  own 
immediate  loss.  They  forgot  to  ask  how 
their  separation  afifected  Christ. 

The  disciples  revealed  in  this  the  nat- 
ural selfishness  of  sorrow.     We  appear 
to   mourn    for   others.      Really    we   are 
mourning  for  ourselves.     What  fills  our 
thought  is  the  meaning  to  us  of  the  sep- 
aration  between   them   and    us,    not   its 
meaning  to  them.    A  Christian  dies.   His 
death  is  a  great  loss  to  those  who  loved 
him,  and  to  the  community  in  which  he 
lived.     His  death  is  an  infinite  gain  to 
him.     He  has  gone  to  be  with   Christ, 
which  is  far  better.     From  his  face  the 
Father  wipes  all  tears  away.    Which  con- 
sideration  determines  the  emotions  and 
conduct    of    the    man's    friends?     They 
weep   and   lament,    regretting   what   has 
taken  place,  and  bewailing  it  with  grief. 
The    shades    are    drawn    in    the    house. 
People  pass  softly  to  and   fro,  and  the 
sound    of   crying   is   heard.      A   gloomy 
funeral,   moving  sadly  to  the  grave,   is 
the  dark  end  of  all.     What  a  pageantry 
of  selfishness !     It  is  a  protest  against 


The  Selfishness  of  Sorrow    159 

the  coronation  of  a  soul,  against  the 
meeting  of  a  disciple  with  his  Lord.  For 
their  sakes  his  friends  would  have  kept  a 
child  of  God  from  the  glorious  home  to 
which,  for  his  sake,  the  Father  has  called 
him  lovingly. 

And  the  same  disposition  to  be  selfish 
in  our  sorrow  is  displayed  in  lesser 
things.  Some  people  are  scarcely  happy 
unless  they  are  unhappy.  If  they  are  not 
abused  and  disliked,  they  fear  they  are 
in  danger  of  the  woe  pronounced  upon 
those  of  whom  "  all  men  shall  speak 
well."  There  is  a  self-satisfaction,  a 
self-praise,  which  such  evil  treatment 
enables  us  to  feel,  which  we  cherish 
secretly.  But  here,  too,  it  is  of  ourselves 
we  are  thinking,  and  not  of  those  who 
thus  abuse  us.  It  is  right  that  we  should 
sorrow,  but  it  should  be  with  a  sad,  out- 
reaching  sympathy  for  those  who  know 
not  what  they  do.  The  comfortable 
sense  of  being  wronged  should  give  place 
to  a  yearning  love  for  evil-doers  which 
would  forget  self. 

But  sorrow  finds  it  hard  to  forget  self. 


i6o  Christ  and  Life 

The  very  emotions  of  sorrow  are  sweet 
to  the  selfish  heart.  And  very  great 
saints  may  be  among  the  most  selfish  of 
men  in  this.  A  little  thought  shows  how 
large  a  place  they  themselves  play  in 
their  sorrow,  and  how  their  very  sorrow 
supplies  a  selfish  sweetness  to  them. 
Thus  St.  Augustine  dissects  his  feelings 
on  the  death  of  a  friend :  "  At  this  grief 
my  heart  was  utterly  darkened,  and  what- 
ever I  beheld  was  death.  My  native 
country  was  a  torment  to  me,  and  my 
father's  house  a  strange  unhappiness ; 
and  whatever  I  had  shared  with  him 
for  lack  of  him  became  a  ghastly  tor- 
ture. .  .  .  Only  tears  were  sweet  to 
me,  and  took  my  friend's  place  in  my 
heart's  aflFections.  And  now,  Lx>rd,  these 
things  are  passed  by,  and  time  hath  as- 
suaged my  wound.  May  I  learn  from 
Thee  .  .  .  why  weeping  Is  pleasant  to 
the  wretched?  .  .  .  Whence,  then,  is 
sweet  fruit  gathered  from  the  bitterness 
of  life,  from  groaning,  sighing,  and  com- 
plaining? ...  I  wept  most  bitterly 
and  found  my  rest  in  bitterness.     Then 


The  Selfishness  of  Sorrow    i6i 

was  I  wretched,  and  even  that  wretched 
life  I  held  dearer  than  my  friend."  This 
is  self  deriving  pleasure  and  relief  from 
the  contemplation  of  its  wretchedness. 

Something  of  the  same  sort  may  be 
seen  constantly  in  children.  A  child  ob- 
served, and  conscious  of  observance,  will 
cry  at  what,  if  alone,  it  will  not  notice  at 
all.  In  the  latter  case,  so  far  as  anything 
attracts  the  child's  notice,  it  is  the  act 
itself.  In  the  former,  it  is  the  child  as  the 
subject  of  the  act.  The  sense  of  self- 
consciousness  gives  birth  to  a  sorrow 
that  the  child  in  the  health  of  natural- 
ness can  not  feel.  And  do  not  many  tears 
shed  at  funerals  spring  from  the  same 
self-consciousness  of  sorrow?  In  heathen 
lands  mourners  are- hired  to  weep,  and,  in 
the  presence  of  the  company  who  expect 
it  of  them,  do  weep  and  wail  with  a  sor- 
row as  real  as  much  of  ours. 

So  predominant  is  the  element  of  self- 
ishness in  our  sorrow  that  our  very  dic- 
tionaries define  it  as  "  distress  of  mind 
caused  by  misfortune,  injury,  loss,  disap- 
pointment, or  the  like ;  "  "  the  uneasiness 


162  Christ  and  Life 

or  pain  of  mind  which  is  produced  by  the 
loss  of  any  good,  real  or  supposed." 
Poets  sing  of  it  as  "  remembering  hap- 
pier things,"  and  philosophers,  like 
Locke,  describe  it  as  "  uneasiness  in  the 
mind  upon  the  thought  of  a  good  lost 
which  might  have  been  enjoyed  longer, 
or  the  sense  of  a  present  evil." 

There  is  a  nobler  sorrow.  The  Man  of 
Sorrows  sorrowed  for  others,  not  for 
Himself.  He  did  not  grieve  at  His  pains 
for  men,  but  at  the  sins  of  men,  which 
cursed  and  blinded  them.  There  was  in 
Him  no  morbid  or  ascetic  gratification  at 
pain  and  loss.  He  accepted  them  for  the 
sake  of  men.  The  sorrows  which  made 
Him  the  Man  of  Sorrows  were  the  sor- 
rows of  men  which  He  took  upon  Him- 
self,— the  very  consequences  of  their  evil 
and  wrong.  This  was  the  Messianic 
glory.     He  was  the  unselfish  sorrower. 

And  among  men  there  are  sorrows  like 
Christ's.  He  was  grieved  at  the  hardness 
of  men's  hearts.  He  wondered,  in  Mr. 
Ruskin's  words,  not  at  what  men  suffered, 
but  at  what  they  lost,  and  He  sorrowed 


The  Selfishness  of  Sorrow    163 

for  them.  When  we  sorrow  for  the  sin- 
ner who  will  not  be  free  from  his  sin,  for 
the  little  child  who  suffers  from  pinching 
hunger  and  biting  cold,  for  the  rich  man 
whose  greatest  need  is  the  consciousness 
of  need,  for  the  people  who  kill  their  re- 
deemers and  know  not  what  they  do,  for 
the  seeking  soul  repulsed  by  those  to 
whom  it  comes  in  its  trust,  for  those  who 
can  live  on  the  trades  and  ministries  of 
death, — whenever  we  sorrow,  not  because 
of  our  loss  or  disappointment,  but  be- 
cause we  feel  the  loss  and  disappointment 
of  others,  we  too  become  men  of  sorrows 
of  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  Man. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  sorrow  may 
be  nobly  selfish.  That  is  when  it  works 
nobly  for  the  purification  of  self,  when  its 
essence  is  the  recognition  of  defects  and 
shortcomings  in  self  which  are  displeas- 
ing to  God,  and  must  be  removed.  Such 
godly  sorrow,  though  it  spring  from  what 
is  regretful,  worketh  unto  a  salvation 
which  bringeth  no  regret.  But  if  sorrow 
is  only  the  distress  of  mind  caused  by  the 
sense  of  loss,  touched  by  no  redemptive 


164  Christ  and  Life 

power,  no  outreaching  toward  reparation, 
it  is  mean  with  the  littleness  and  the  dete- 
riorating weakness  of  self. 

Whether  the  sorrow  of  men  is  worthy 
and  Christlike  is  shown  by  the  cures  they 
propose  for  it.  When  they  call  it  "  a  kind 
of  rust  of  the  soul  which  every  new  idea 
contributes,  in  its  passage,  to  scour 
away,"  as  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  does,  or 
hold,  with  Publius  Syrus,  that  "  patience 
is  a  remedy  for  every  sorrow,"  they  show 
that  they  mean  by  sorrow  some  selfish 
sense  of  loss.  When  men  mean  by  it  a 
sad  sense  of  what  others  are  losing,  they 
set  about  its  cure,  as  Jesus  did,  by  bear- 
ing the  sorrows  of  men  so  as  to  bear  them 
away,  and  by  offering  to  the  lives  of  men 
what  they  lack. 

There  is  ample  room  in  our  lives  for 
sorrow  over  our  own  sins.  There  is  no 
room  for  sorrow  over  the  dealings  of  God 
with  us.  Those  dealings  are  always  for 
our  good,  whatever  they  take  away  from 
us  or  bring  to  us,  and  sorrow  over  them 
is  especially  unworthy  and  wrong  when 
it  is  a  protest,  not  only  against  God's  will 


The  Selfishness  of  Sorrow    165 

for  us,  but  also  against  His  loving  plan 
for  others.  When  He  takes  His  children 
home,  it  is  all  gain  and  blessing  for  them. 
The  rebellion  which  finds  expression  in 
the  remonstrance  of  our  grief  is  selfish- 
ness such  as  Jesus  gently  reproved  when 
He  reminded  the  disciples  that  their 
thoughts  were  wholly  of  themselves,  and 
negligent  of  Him,  as  He  spoke  to  them  of 
His  departure  to  His  Father  and  their 
Father,  to  His  God  and  their  God,  They 
were  giving  up  nothing  in  comparison 
with  the  Father's  gift  when  He  sent 
forth  His  Son  without  sorrow  into  the 
world,  and  He  who  had  given  this  gift 
was  able  also  to  comfort  their  hearts,  as 
they  would  be  able  to  comfort  others 
when  they  had  yielded  all  to  Him. 


XVII 
CHRISTIAN  ACTIVITY 

^  The  reason  firm,  the  temperate  will, 
Endurance,   foresight,   strength  and   skill — "" 

These  were  the  quaUties  Wordsworth 
perceived  in  his  perfect  woman.  They 
are  qualities,  though  not  all  the  qualities, 
which  should  mark  the  acts  of  the  Chris- 
tian who  would  bear  his  part  worthily. 
And  perhaps  even  these  lines  would  be 
improved  by  transposing  the  adjectives 
in  the  first: 

"  The  reason  temperate,  the  firm  will." 

For  we  are  coming  back  to  the  true  ex- 
altation of  the  will.  Neither  the  man  of 
opinion  nor  the  man  of  emotion  can 
stand  before  the  man  of  will.  They 
will  long  for  that  which  He  will  do.  They 
i66 


Christian  Activity  167 

aspire  where  he  performs.  "A  wish," 
said  South,  "  is  properly  the  desire  of  a 
man  sitting  or  lying  still— but  an  act  of 
the  will  is  a  man  of  business  vigorously 
going  about  his  work."  The  Christian 
has  the  business  of  his  Father  to  be  about, 
and  is  following  One  who  went  through 
life  doing  good,  whom  the  zeal  of  His 
Father's  house  ate  up,  and  whose  virile, 
beneficent  life  proclaimed  as  distinctly  as 
His  words  that  He  was  straitened  to  work 
the  works  of  Him  that  had  sent  Him 
while  it  was  day.  It  will  be  His  will, 
therefore,  to  be  a  man,  not  of  contem- 
plation or  of  cxsthetic  taste  only,  but  of 
strong-willed  service  of  God  and  man. 

This  will  be  one  characteristic  of  the 
true  Christian.  He  will  be  a  worker  for 
God.  He  will  not  excuse  himself  from 
spiritual  service  because  he  is  unfit  there- 
for, for  if  he  is  unfit  for  this,  he  is  unfit 
to  be  alive ;  or  because  he  has  felt  no  di- 
vine call  thereto,  but  has  been  summoned 
only  to  some  secular  service,  for  he  is 
unfit  for  such  service  if  he  does  not  take 
it  up  in  God's  fear. 


1 68  Christ  and  Life 

"...  Hymns  say  right, 
All  service  ranks  the  same  with  God — 
With  God,  whose  puppets,  best  and  worst, 
Are  we;   there  is  no  last  or  first." 

And,  just  as  the  warden  of  the  Broad 
Plain  House  at  Bristol  has  written, 
"  Consider  the  pathos  of  the  situation: 
'  the  affliction  of  the  people,'  their  '  cry.' 
And  then  think  of  God  waiting  for  the 
sons  of  men,  waiting  to  use  them  in  the 
service  of  man.  It  sometimes  seems  still 
as  if  He  looks  and  there  is  none  to  help, 
and  He  wonders  that  there  is  none  to  up- 
hold. Do  not  let  us  trouble  over  our 
want  of  gifts.  It  has  been  found  out 
that  God  is  always  using  the  most  ordi- 
nary and  unlikely  means.  The  work  of 
the  world  is  steadily  being  done  by  men 
and  women  whom  we  should  never  have 
dreamed  of  choosing,  but  whom  God 
chooses  because  He  finds  them  willing 
and  ready  for  His  use,  humble  and  in 
the  end  confident." 

As  the  Christian  man's  thought,  so  also 
will  his  conduct  be  modest.  The  neces- 
sary characteristic  of  the  mightiest  serv- 


Christian  Activity  169 

ice  is  gentleness.  No  one  hears  the  thun- 
der of  the  spheres  or  the  irresistible 
power  of  the  sunbeams.  And  the  true 
Christian  will  be  still  and  gentle.  "  A 
man  that  has  done  a  kindness,"  says 
Marcus  Aurelius,  "  never  proclaims  it, 
but  does  another  as  soon  as  he  can,  just 
like  a  vine  that  bears  again  the  next  sea- 
son." It  is  easy  to  mar  the  beauty  of 
good  deeds  and  of  a  busy  life  by  a  con- 
scious satisfaction  in  it  and  by  such 
speech  regarding  it  as  will  most  effectu- 
ally deprive  it  of  its  attractiveness.  The 
Christian  man  will  spare  himself  not  at 
all,  and  will  smile  at  the  thought  that  he 
is  not  indolent.  And  he  will  be  so  satis- 
fied with  the  sense  of  patient  obedience 
to  the  will  of  God  that  he  will  not  be 
concerned  with  the  judgment  of  man, 
though  he  will  hold  himself  guiltless  of 
the  oflFenses  of  heedlessness.  He  will 
conduct  his  life  on  the  principles  of  the 
late  Archbishop  Benson: 

"  Not  to  call  attention  to  crowded  work  or 
petty  fatigues  or  trivial  experiences. 


Ja^l 


170  Christ  and  Life 

To  heal  wounds  which  in  times  past  my  cruel 
or  careless  hands  have  made. 

To  seek  no  favour,  no  compassion ;  to  deserve, 
not  ask  for,  tenderness. 

Not  to  feel  any  uneasiness  when  my  advice 
or  opinion  is  not  asked,  or  is  set  aside." 

To  teach  us  something  of  this  the  in- 
finite God  visibly  acted  among  men  in 
the  incarnation  and  called  Himself  a  lamb. 
I  have  a  paper  written  by  a  Chinese  cap- 
tain, a  Christian,  on  that  phrase,  "  the 

mb  of  God."  "  Before  I  became  a 
Christian,"  he  writes,  "  I  was  reading  one 
day  the  Gospel  of  John  when  my  atten- 
tion was  arrested  by  these  words.  It 
struck  me  as  absolutely  inappropriate  to 
liken  the  Son  of  God  to  a  lamb.  Man 
is  always  willing  and  ready  to  worship 
power,  and  prefers  to  bow  to  the  roaring 
lion  and  cruel  tiger,  which  have  contrib- 
uted nothing  to  his  advancement,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  filled  his  heart  with  awe 
and  terror.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ox, 
ass  and  sheep,  to  which  man  owes  so 
much  of  wealth,  comfort  and  civilisation, 


Christian  Activity  171 

are  made  the  emblems  of  simple  and  un- 
ambitious minds.  Not  till  I  became  a 
Christian  did  the  light  dawn  upon  my 
soul,  and  revealed  to  me  with  force  and 
beauty  the  depth  and  richness  of  meaning 
that  is  contained  in  the  word  lamb,  but  of 
whose  significance  I  was  formerly  blind. 
The  lamb  is  meek,  gentle,  innocent  and 
inoffensive.  Jesus,  the  Son  of  God,  the 
lamb  of  the  world,  the  great  sacrifice, 
came  not  to  attract  worldly  notice  and 
applause,  came  not  to  create  a  noise  or 
to  draw  admiration.  He  came  to  bear  all 
our  sins.  He  came  not  to  strike  terror 
into  our  hearts  or  to  force  admittance, 
but  to  soothe  the  broken-hearted  and  free 
the  captives.  It  was  with  pity,  with  hu- 
mility, with  sorrow  for  the  world  and 
love  for  the  sinners  that  He  came,  cast- 
ing aside  all  power  and  glory,  taking  upon 
Himself  our  sins  and  guilt,  bearing  the  in- 
iquity of  the  whole  human  race.  He 
came  to  minister,  not  to  be  ministered 
unto." 

The  Christian  will  be  possessed  by  the 


172  Christ  and  Life 

idea  of  ministry,  of  missionary  service, 
and  the  unselfish  beneficences  of  the 
Church  will  be  his  care  and  delight,  and 
not  less  so  because  he  will  expect  them  to 
be  administered  with  all  the  skill,  faith 
and  ingenuity  which  man's  mind  can 
provide. 

Yet  into  this  unselfish  ministry  this 
Christian  will  put  all  the  strength  of  his 
will,  too.  To  say  that  he  will  be  of  mod- 
est and  lowly  heart  in  his  acts  is  not  to 
say  that  he  will  be  feeble  and  effeminate. 
He  will  care  little  for  himself,  and  be 
ready  to  yield  much  there,  but  he  will  be 
firm  as  rock  in  the  service  of  unselfish- 
ness. Nothing  is  likely  to  be  accom- 
plished there  without  resolution  and  ev- 
erything with  it.  As  an  old  railroad 
president  said  once  to  his  nephew,  Mr. 
Moody's  Boston  Sunday  school  teacher, 
Edward  Kimball,  "  Nothing  but  Omnipo- 
tence can  stand  in  the  way  of  a  deter- 
mined man."  And  Omnipotence  happens 
to  be  working  with  the  men  of  whom  we 
are  thinking.    It  is  for  Him  that  they  are 


Christian  Activity  173 

living,  and  having  no  fear  of  what  man 
can  do  to  them  they  can  not  be  loosened 
of  their  resolution,  least  of  all  by  what 
they  know  to  be  valueless  and  ephemeral. 
The  Christian  must  somehow  strike  the 
balance,  too,  between  Christian  consider- 
ateness  and  courtesy  on  one  side  and  out- 
spoken and  vertebrate  disapproval  of 
compromise  and  contemptible  conduct 
and  silliness  on  the  other.  Life  can  be- 
come too  smooth  and  human  intercourse 
an  opiate.  And  the  conventions  of  an 
artificial  life  may  grow  so  strong  as  to 
emasculate  character  and  goggle  all  hu- 
man vision.  The  complaisant  ways  of 
society  easily  glide  into  treason  to  per- 
sonality and  into  falsehood  not  less  harm- 
ful to  moral  fibre  because  mutually  un- 
derstood and  never  admitted  to  memory. 
Strong  and  unselfish,  the  Christian  must 
above  all  be  true.  He  can  not  go  away 
into  a  desert  or  a  hermit's  cell.  He  must 
live  among  men,  and  do  his  work  there, 
and  yet  be  a  Christian  in  his  kindliness ; 
not  hurl  himself  against  what  is  mean- 


174  Christ  and  Life 

ingless,  and  so  destroy  his  power  against 
what  is  full  of  meaning  from  the  devil ; 
and  yet  also  free  from  all  covenant  with 
lies.  If  some  things  are  difficult  and  ob- 
scure as  he  tries  to  do  what  is  right  here, 
some  things  are  easy  and  plain.  The 
Christian  will  not  rent  his  property  for 
saloons  and  then  pray  for  the  widow  and 
the  fatherless.  He  will  spue  the  idea  of 
such  debauchery  out  of  his  mouth.  He 
will  not  say  "  yes  "  when  "  no  "  is  the 
truth,  and  he  will  be  as  pitiless  of  the 
error  as  he  is  pitiful  of  the  erring. 

How  the  true  Christian  will  act  will 
be  a  matter,  not  of  expediency  or  of  pub- 
lic opinion,  or  of  the  conventions  of  his 
class,  but  of  principle.  And  this  princi- 
ple will  not  be  the  instinct  of  his  moral 
judgment  or  any  prescription  of  his  own 
feelings.  It  will  have  heavier  sanctions 
than  these.  There  is  an  objective  stand- 
ard of  right  and  wrong  above  us  and  un- 
alterable by  anything  we  may  think  or 
feel.  And  Christ  is  this  standard.  "  I 
am  the  Way,"  He  said.    He  who  has  been 


Christian  Activity  175 

Lord  of  a  certain  portion  of  our  thinking 
must  become  Lord  of  the  whole,  and  of 
the  whole  of  our  feeling  and  acting,  too. 

The  world  is  already  doing  what  Jesus 
Himself  did — calling  those  people  hypo- 
crites and  tiars  who  salute  Jesus  in  the 
temple  as  Lord,  and  in  the  market  places 
water  stocks,  and  in  the  courts  corrupt 
justice,  and  in  field  and  mill  oppress  the 
laborer  and  his  little  child.  From  all 
this  the  Christian  will  come  out  and  sep- 
arate himself  and  will  not  find  any  justi- 
fication of  his  continuance  in  the  evil  and 
wrong  thereof,  in  the  plea  that  he  can  not 
fight  against  the  organisation  of  society. 
He  will  find  it  possible  to  be  a  Christian 
in  his  business,  or  he  will  find  a  way  of 
escaping  from  the  business  which,  while 
it  may  give  him  the  whole  world,  costs 
him  his  own  soul. 

Against  neglect  of  life's  summons  as 
against  the  perversion  of  its  opportuni- 
ties, the  true  Christian  will  warn  his 
heart,  believing  in  the  judgment  and  re- 
calling the  truth  which  flashed  once  at 


176  Christ  and  Life 

least  across  the  disordered  mind  of  poor 
James  Thompson,  condemning  himself: 

"  The  selfish,  proud  and  pitiless, 
All  who  have  falsified  life's  royal  trust: 

The  strong  whose  strength  hath  basked  in  idle- 
ness; 
The  great  heart  given  up  to  worldly  lust; 

The  great  mind  destitute  of  moral  faith ; 

Thou  scourgest  down  to  Night  and  utter  Death, 
Or  penal  spheres  of  retribution  just." 


XVIII 

TO  EVERY  MAN  HIS  WORK 

Some  time  ago  one  of  the  religious 
papers  printed  a  review  of  a  book  entitled 
"  The  Leading  Idlers  of  the  Gospels." 
At  least  one  person  bought  the  book  on 
the  strength  of  that  review,  and  was  not 
greatly  surprised  to  find  that  the  proof 
reader  had  slipped  and  that  the  real  title 
was  "  The  Leading  Ideas  of  the  Gos- 
pels." The  gospel  makes  no  room  for 
drones.  The  Saviour  speaks  always  of 
work.  "  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of 
Him  that  sent  Me,  and  to  accomplish  His 
work."  "  We  must  work  the  works  of 
Him  that  sent  Me,  while  it  is  day :  the 
night  cometh,  when  no  man  can  work." 
"  My  Father  worketh  even  until  now,  and 
I  work."  And  at  the  end  of  all  He  de- 
clares, "  I  have  glorified  Thee  on  the 
177 


lyS  Christ  and  Life 

earth,  having  accomplished  the  work 
which  Thou  hast  given  Me  to  do." 

In  this  as  in  other  things  Jesus  is  our 
example.  We  think  sometimes  that  He 
was  the  one  son  of  man  to  whom  God 
gave  a  personal  and  peculiar  work.  But 
in  receiving  a  work  from  God  to  do, 
Jesus'  lot  was  like  ours,  and  not  alien 
to  the  plan  of  the  lives  of  God's  com- 
mon children.  One  of  the  great  bless- 
ings of  His  coming  lay  in  His  teaching 
that  each  of  us  has  a  work  to  do  also, 
directly  chosen  for  us  and  assigned  by 
our  loving  Father.  "  Son,"  He  represents 
the  Father  as  saying  to  His  sons,  "  Go 
work  to-day  in  the  vineyard,"  and  He 
likened  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  a  man 
going  into  a  far  country  to  sojourn  who 
had  given  authority  to  his  servants,  and 
to  each  man  his  work. 

Oftentimes  the  personal  Christian  life 
is  supposed  to  include  simply  our  devo- 
tional habits  and  the  inner  spiritual  emo- 
tions and  movements  of  our  thought. 
But  the  omission  of  active  work  and 
service  is  fatal.     We  can  not  maintain  a 


To  Every  Man  His  Work     179 

true  Christian  life  just  for  ourselves. 
God  gives  us  good  that  we  may  share  it, 
and  the  act  of  sharing  it  both  makes  it 
ours  permanently  and  expands  it  richly. 
Our  Christian  life  is  intended  to  be  not  a 
meditation,  but  a  ministry. 

The  work  which  each  Christian  is  to 
do  is  not  a  chance  work  chosen  at  ran- 
dom. It  is  an  assignment,  a  vocation. 
Vocation  means  calling.  That  is  what 
each  Christian's  work  is  intended  to  be. 
Each  one  of  us  has  a  work  to  do  and 
this  work  is  God's  work  for  us.  There 
is  great  calm  and  certainty,  and  there 
is  great  strength  and  power  in  this  truth. 
"  In  the  morning,"  says  Marcus  Aurelius, 
"  when  thou  art  sluggish  at  rousing 
thee,  let  this  thought  be  present,  I  am 
rising  to  do  a  man's  work."  We  can 
accept  all  that  comes  with  perfect  peace 
of  mind,  and  we  can  know  that  no  power 
in  the  universe  can  overthrow  us  or 
make  us  fail  if  we  find  and  do  God's 
chosen  work.  And  there  is  nothing  nar- 
row in  this  thought.  God  does  not  as- 
sign men  alone  to  what  the  world  re- 


i8o  Christ  and  Life 

gards  as  professional  religious  work. 
"  Every  art  or  work,  however  unimport- 
ant it  may  seem,"  said  John  Tauler,  seven 
hundred  years  ago,  "is  a  gift  of  God; 
and  all  these  gifts  are  bestowed  by  the 
Holy  Ghost  for  the  profit  and  welfare  of 
man.  Let  us  begin  with  the  lowest.  One 
can  spin,  another  can  make  shoes,  and 
some  have  great  aptness  for  all  sorts  of 
outward  arts.  These  are  all  gifts  pro- 
ceeding from  the  Spirit  of  God.  If  I 
were  not  a  priest,  but  were  living  as  a 
layman,  I  should  take  it  as  a  great  favor 
that  I  knew  how  to  make  shoes  and 
should  try  to  make  them  better  than  any 
one  else,  and  should  gladly  earn  my  bread 
by  the  labor  of  my  hands.  There  is  no 
work  so  small,  no  art  so  mean,  but  it  all 
comes  from  God,  and  is  a  special  gift  of 
His.  Thus  let  each  do  that  which  an- 
other can  not  do  so  well,  and  for  love, 
returning  gift  for  gift." 

It  is  restful  to  think  that  every  day 
our  work  is  portioned  out  to  us  for  the 
day.     What  we  call   interruptions  may 


To  Every  Man  His  Work     i8i 

be  even  more  God's  appointments  for  the 
day  than  our  carefully  prepared  projects. 

"  Father,  I  do  not  ask 
That  Thou  wilt  choose  some  other  task 
And  make  it  mine.     I  pray 
But  this :    let  every  day 
Be  molded  still 

By  Thine  own  hand ;    my  will 
Be  only  Thine,  however  deep 
I  have  to  bend  Thy  hand  to  keep. 
Let  me  not  simply  do,  but  be  content, 
Sure  that  the  little  crosses  each  are  sent, 
And  no  mistake  can  ever  be 
With  Thine  own  hand  to  choose  for  me." 

God  will  not  give  any  man  unworthy 
work.  There  may  be  much  that  is 
routine  in  it,  but  this  will  not  obscure 
some  divine  and  living  purpose.  A  trade 
or  a  profession  is  good  in  itself,  but  God 
means  it  to  serve  also  a  greater  end. 
It  opens  ways  for  a  Christian  to  human 
hearts  and  makes  it  possible  for  him  to 
do  that  sort  of  work  that  abides  after 
the  world  and  all  that  is  in  it  have  passed 
away.  It  is  hard  to  believe,  accordingly, 
that   God   would   call   any   one  just   to 


1 8a  Christ  and  Life 

make  money.  Sometimes  young  men 
are  enticed  by  this  temptation,  and  ex- 
cuse themselves  from  living  work  on  the 
ground  that  they  will  earn  money  for  the 
kingdom  of  God.  The  kingdom  can  get 
along  without  money,  but  not  without 
life.  Jesus  called  the  disciples  to  be  fish- 
ers not  of  money,  but  of  men,  and  every 
man  now,  whatever  the  occupation  by 
which  he  earns  his  support,  or  more  than 
his  support,  must  be  a  winner  of  souls,  a 
shepherd  of  hearts. 

God  is  eager  to  point  out  to  each  one  of 
us  his  own  peculiar  work.  Oftentimes 
conscientious  Christians  trouble  them- 
selves with  questionings  here.  "  How 
shall  we  discover  the  will  of  God  ?  "  they 
ask.  First,  we  must  cease  looking  for 
some  external  or  magical  voice  or  guid- 
ance. God  works  in  our  hearts,  not  over 
them.  It  is  in  us  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
says,  "  Abba,  Father,"  and  in  the  same 
way  God  guides  us  within  our  own 
spirits,  so  that  we  can  not  distinguish  His 
guidance  from  the  motion  of  our  own 
hearts,  but  submitting  ourselves  to  Him 


To  Every  Man  His  Work     183 

may  be  sure  that  though  He  is  respect- 
ing the  integrity  of  our  own  personal- 
ities, He  is  still  working  within  them.  He 
rules  the  world  from  within.  He  will 
probably  do  the  same  with  our  lives. 

Second,  as  Horace  Bushnell  says,  we 
must  exclude  certain  things  that  are 
likely  to  mislead ;  the  desire  to  be  singu- 
lar, copying  the  lives  of  others,  complaint 
of  surroundings,  the  wish  to  know  every- 
thing from  the  outset. 

Thirdly,  we  must  consider  the  charac- 
ter of  God  and  be  sure  that  God  can  not 
assign  us  any  work  that  is  not  in  har- 
mony with  this  character.  Consider  our 
relation  to  God  as  Creator  and  Lord.  We 
must  not  do  anything  that  is  inconsistent 
with  the  relationship  of  proprietorship 
and  sovereignty. 

Consider  our  own  moral  judgment.  It 
may  be  wrong  and  allow  what  God  con- 
demns, but  we  must  consider  it  to  dis- 
cover whether  it  needs  amendment.  Test 
it  by  the  law  and  revelation  of  God  in  the 
Bible  and  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  consider 
what  light  this  throws  upon  our  path. 


184  Christ  and  Life 

We  should  consult  our  friends.  Perhaps 
we  will  have  to  disregard  their  advice, 
perhaps  not.  Their  judgment  can  never 
be  final.  They  can  not  bear  our  responsi- 
bility for  us.  We  have  no  right  to  sur- 
render our  judgment  to  them. 

We  must  consult  our  best  Friend. 
God's  providence  has  been  shaping  our 
lives.  If  we  are  facing  the  missionary 
problem,  who  brought  us  face  to  face 
with  it?  Consider  the  significance  of 
that.  It  makes  it  impossible  for  us  to 
say  that  if  we  ought  to  go,  every  one 
ought  to  go,  for  every  one  has  not  been 
providentially  confronted  with  it. 

Pray,  and  "  when  decision  and  action 
are  necessary,  go  ahead,"  as  Professor 
Drummond  used  to  say.  "  You  will  not 
find  out  until  later,  probably  much  later, 
that  you  were  led  at  all."  For  God  leads 
His  children  who  will  follow  even  when 
they  have  no  consciousness  of  being  led. 
In  this  as  in  other  things  we  walk  by 
faith  and  not  by  sight. 

This  specific  work  that  God  gives  to 
each  one  of  us  is  the  thing  that  we  are 


To  Every  Man  His  Work     185 

to  do.  Put  the  emphasis  on  do.  "  My 
meat  is  to  do,"  said  Jesus.  The  will  of 
God  for  us  is  to  be  worked  at,  not 
merely  thought  upon.  Jesus  bids  us  to 
labour  for  the  meat  that  endureth  unto 
eternal  life,  and  when  we  have  it  we 
are  to  labour  in  the  strength  of  it.  What 
can  not  a  resolute  man  or  woman  do  in 
his  or  her  own  strength  ?  Think  of  Helen 
Keller.  There  is  said  to  be  a  school 
teacher  in  Southern  Pennsylvania  whose 
hands  were  blown  off  by  a  premature 
blast  at  a  stone  quarry,  when  he  was  a  boy. 
To  save  his  life  it  was  necessary  to  ampu- 
tate both  arms  near  the  elbows.  While 
recovering  he  read  a  book  on  the  lives  of 
self-made  men,  and  determined  not  to 
give  up.  He  went  to  school  and  for 
fourteen  years  now  he  has  been  teaching 
successfully.  He  is  an  excellent  penman, 
holding  the  pen  between  the  ends  of  his 
arms.  He  is  a  good  boxer,  an  accurate 
marksman,  pulling  the  trigger  of  his  gun 
by  means  of  a  strap  held  in  his  teeth. 
He  has  been  active  in  politics,  and  as 
secretary  of  two  local  societies  has  kept 


1 86  Christ  and  Life 

books  which  are  said  to  be  models  of 
neatness.  This  was  what  a  man  accom- 
plished who  resolved  to  do,  and  if  men 
in  their  own  strength  can  do  this,  what 
can  not  a  man  do  in  God's  strength? 

Life  is  a  trifle  in  comparison  with 
work.  "  I  hold  not  my  life,"  says  Paul, 
"  of  any  account,  as  dear  unto  myself,  so 
that  I  may  accomplish  my  course." 
Jesus  willingly  gave  His  life,  letting  His 
body  die  for  the  sake  of  His  work.  As 
Samuel  Bowles  said  once,  "  The  man  who 
is  not  willing  to  die  for  his  work  is  not 
fit  to  live  for  it."  This  is  the  real  mark 
of  greatness,  of  nobility  in  men.  As 
Huxley  wrote  to  his  friend  Donnelly,  of 
Chinese  Gordon's  death  in  the  Soudan : 
"  Of  all  the  people  whom  I  have  met  with 
in  my  life,  he  and  Darwin  are  the  two 
in  whom  I  have  found  something  bigger 
than  ordinary  humanity — an  unequalled 
simplicity  and  directness  of  purpose — a 
sublime  unselfishness.  Horrible  as  it  is 
to  us,  I  imagine  that  the  manner  of  his 
death  was  not  unwelcome  to  himself. 
Better  wear  out  than  rust  out,  and  better 


To  Every  Man  His  Work     187 

break  than  wear  out."  A  man  has  no 
right  to  mar  his  life,  but  he  has  still  less 
right  to  mar  his  work  in  order  to  save 
his  life. 

"  What  are  we  set  on  earth  for  ?     Say,  to  toil." 

Our  Christian  life  becomes  radiant 
with  fresh  significance  when  we  conceive 
it  as  an  agency  of  God  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  some  noble,  divinely  se- 
lected end,  and  an  end,  too,  distinctly 
original  and  personal  in  the  case  of  each 
of  us.  We  are  here  to  do  a  specific  part 
of  God's  work  for  Him.  If  we  do  not 
do  that  we  miss  the  first  purpose  of  our 
life ;  we  hinder,  though  we  can  not  frus- 
trate, His  plans,  and  we  lose  our  own 
most  splendid  privilege  of  being  His  fel- 
low workers.  Let  us  not  do  that.  Let 
us  work  His  work,  and  do  it  in  the  Spirit 
of  the  Christ  who  was  straitened  till  His 
work  was  done,  and  who  then  could  say, 
"  I  glorified  Thee  on  the  earth,  having 
accomplished  the  work  which  Thou  hast 
given  Me  to  do." 


XIX 

HOW    CHRIST    RANKS     DUTIES 
AND  INTERESTS 

In  the  eyes  of  the  world  the  place  of 
primary  importance  in  a  man's  life  be- 
longs to  his  interest.  In  the  eyes  of 
Christ  it  belongs  to  his  duty.  "  Look  out 
for  number  one,"  the  world  says,  and 
number  one  is  each  man's  self.  But  self 
with  Christ  was  number  two.  He  saved 
others.  Himself  He  could  not  save.  He 
pleased  not  Himself.  "  Looking  out  for 
number  one "  is  with  men  a  law  of 
selfishness.  "  Looking  out  for  number 
one  "  was  with  Christ  a  law  of  service. 
Interest  rules  men ;  duty  ruled  Christ. 

The  deliberate  preference  of  duty  to 
interest  led  Christ  to  waive  His  rights. 
He  explained  to  Peter,  in  connection  with 
the  temple  tax,  that  He  might  have  de- 
clined payment.  "'  The  sons  are  free," 
i88 


Duties  and  Interests         189 

He  said,  "  but — "  He  waived  the  right 
to  exercise  His  liberty.  And  the  Incar- 
nation was  in  itself  a  gigantic  surrender 
of  interest  to  a  divine  sense  of  duty.  Hav- 
ing a  right  to  an  equality  with  God,  Christ 
deemed  this  right  a  thing  not  to  be 
jealously  retained,  but  emptied  Himself. 
His  right  to  surrender  His  rights  which 
constituted  His  duty  He  set  above  His 
rights  which  constituted  His  interest.  It 
is  this  that  makes  duty  more  glorious 
than  interest.  It  is  the  assertion  of  a 
higher  right, — namely,  the  right  to  sur- 
render in  the  interest  of  others  the  rights 
which  constitute  the  interest  of  self. 

And  what  Jesus  set  uppermost  in  His 
own  life  was  set  there,  not  arbitrarily, 
but  because  of  principles  which  require 
our  conformation  to  the  same  standard. 
In  the  lives  of  all  men  He  claims  for 
duties  a  place  above  interests.  To  teach 
men,  not  rights,  but  duty,  as  Mazzini  said, 
"  was  the  work  of  Jesus.  He  did  not 
speak  of  interest  to  men  whose  souls 
were  poisoned  by  the  cult  of  interests. 
.    .    .  He  bent  over  the  decaying  world, 


190  Christ  and  Life 

and  murmured  in  its  ear  a  word  of  faith. 
To  that  obscene  thing  which  retained 
nought  but  the  aspect  and  notions  of  a 
man,  He  uttered  words  unknown  up  to 
that  day, — love,  self-sacrifice,  celestial 
origin.  The  dead  arose,  a  new  life 
thrilled  through  that  obscene  thing  which 
philosophy  had  tried  in  vain  to  bring  to 
life."  Jesus  "  created  for  man  that  theory 
of  duty  which  is  the  mother  of  self-sacri- 
fice, which  ever  was  and  ever  will  be  the 
inspirer  of  great  and  noble  things, — a 
sublime  theory  that  draws  men  near  to 
God,  borrows  from  the  Divine  nature  a 
spark  of  omnipotence,  crosses  at  one  leap 
all  obstacles,  makes  the  martyr's  scafifold 
a  ladder  to  victory,  and  is  as  superior  to 
the  narrow,  imperfect  theory  of  rights  as 
the  law  is  superior  to  all  of  its  corolla- 
ries." 

We  are  familiar  with  the  principle  of 
the  exaltation  of  duty  over  interest  un- 
der the  terms  of  the  law  of  self-renunci- 
ation, the  abandonment  of  material  in- 
terest for  no  material  return.     The  mis- 


Duties  and  Interests         191 

sionary  is  obeying  this  law  when  he  leaves 
congenial  associations,  and  a  comfortable 
climate  and  home,  to  bury  himself  among 
peoples  whose  life  and  surroundings  deny 
him  any  compensation  in  kind  for  the 
material  interests  he  has  abandoned.  But 
though  the  law  of  self-sacrifice  simply  de- 
mands that  duty  be  given  its  just  su- 
premacy over  interest,  we  are  accustomed 
to  regard  it  as  having  a  touch  of  the  su- 
pererogatory. It  is  good,  therefore,  oc- 
casionally to  drop  the  word  out  of  view, 
and  to  state  its  truth  in  the  terms  of  duty 
and  interest.  There  is  no  supererogation 
about  duty.  Sometimes  we  act  as  though 
there  were.  A  soldier  or  a  public  servant 
does  his  duty  in  some  conspicuous  trial, 
and  at  once  some  special  reward  is  pro- 
posed, or  some  extra  remuneration,  as 
though  what  the  man  did  could  not  natur- 
ally have  been  expected  from  him.  The 
risk  of  appearing  ungrateful  at  such 
times  is  less  than  the  risk  of  demoralising 
high  and  stern  notions  of  duty.  What 
a  man  ought  to  do,  he  ought  to  do.    He 


192  Christ  and  Life 

deserves  no  praise  for  doing  it.  He 
would  merit  condemnation  for  anything 
else.    As  Fielding  says  : 

"  When  I'm  not  thank'd  at  all,  I'm  thank'd 
enough ; 
I've  done  my  duty,  and  I've  done  no  more." 

Jesus'  view  of  duty  was  above  all  our  lax, 
disintegrating  sentimentalism.  "  When 
ye  shall  have  done  all  the  things  that  are 
commanded  you,  say,  We  are  unprofitable 
servants ;  we  have  done  that  which  it  was 
our  duty  to  do." 

If  doing  his  duty  is  the  least  that  can  be 
expected  of  a  man,  how  far  beneath  con- 
tempt is  the  course  of  those  who  exalt 
their  interest  above  their  duty!  Some- 
times this  interest  is  purely  selfish  and 
malevolent,  in  that  it  depends  on  injuring 
others  and  defeating  their  interests.  In 
such  cases,  to  seek  it  is  diabolical.  Some- 
times it  is  apparently  innocent,  a  man's 
interest  not  clashing  with  the  contrary 
interest  of  other  men.  In  such  cases,  to 
seek  it  may  be  only  folly, — a  man's  sur- 


Duties  and  Interests         193 

render  of  the  best  to  the  mediocre  in  him- 
self. Evil  or  innocent,  no  other  principle 
is  ever  to  displace  the  principle  of  duty. 
Arnold  of  Rugby  declared  the  spirit  of 
chivalry  a  hateful  and  anti-Christian 
thing,  because  it  did  this  and  "  fostered 
a  sense  of  honor  rather  than  a  sense  of 
duty."  Sometimes  the  spirit  of  love  is 
exalted  as  superior  to  the  sense  of  duty; 
but  the  conflict  is  forced  and  unnatural, 
for  the  spirit  of  love  issues  in  the  spirit 
of  duty,  and  the  spirit  of  duty  is  evidence 
of  the  spirit  of  love. 

The  personal  life  and  the  national 
policy  founded  on  interest  are  essentially 
weak.  They  can  not  support  themselves 
against  the  sweep  of  the  moral  laws  of 
God.  The  peril  in  the  dealings  of  West- 
ern nations  with  Asia  lies  in  this.  They 
are  prone  to  guide  themselves  by  their 
own  interest  rather  than  by  their  duty 
toward  the  Eastern  people.  Chang  Chih 
Tung  justly  complains  of  such  a  course, 
and  objects  to  the  idea  that  there  can  be 
rights  without  duties.    And  in  each  state, 


194  Christ  and  Life 

church,  family,  or  association,  real  sta- 
bility and  content  depend  on  the  su- 
premacy of  duty. 

The  surrender  of  interest  to  duty  is  the 
very  glory  and  joy  of  life.  This  is  the 
lesson  of  Ugo  Bassi's  sermon: 

"  Measure  thy  life  by  loss  instead  of  gain, 
Not  by  the  wine  drunk,  but  the  wine  poured 

forth, 
For  love's  strength  standeth  in  love's  sac- 
rifice." 

And  this  was  one  of  Paley's  teachings: 
"  No  man's  spirits  ever  were  hurt  by  do- 
ing his  duty ;  on  the  contrary,  one  good 
action,  one  temptation  resisted  and  over- 
come, one  sacrifice  of  desire  or  interest 
purely  for  conscience's  sake,  will  prove 
a  cordial  for  weak  and  low  spirits  far  be- 
yond what  either  indulgence  or  diversion 
or  company  can  do  for  them."  That 
man  has  missed  a  great  joy  who  has  not 
learned  to  guide  his  life,  not  according 
to  interests  or  rights,  but  according  to 
duties,  and  to  rest  all  his  ways  and  will 
on  the  impregnable  rock,  "  I  ought."  And 


Duties  and  Interests         195 

duty  done  even  without  reward  is  better 
far  than  interest  sought  with  the  success 
of  fame  or  gain.  Those  are  the  best  days 
in  which  this  is  most  clearly  recognised: 

"  When  service  sweats  for  duty,  not  for  meed." 

Of  course,  it  is  the  blessed  paradox  of 
the  gospel  that  our  duties  are  our  in- 
terests, and  that  whoever  gives  up  his  in- 
terest for  his  duty,  serves  his  interest 
in  the  noblest  sense.  It  is  true  of  the 
Christian,  as  Bishop  Wilkins  said,  that 
"  nothing  is  properly  his  duty  but  what 
is  really  his  interest."  It  is  our  interest 
to  save  our  lives.  But  whoever  would 
save  his  life  shall  lose  it.  It  is  our  duty 
to  lose  our  lives.  And  whoever  loses  his 
life  shall  find  it.  We  spurn  our  interest 
and  do  our  duty,  and,  lo !  at  the  end  of 
our  duty  our  interest  is  awaiting  us.  We 
spurn  our  duty  and  seek  our  interest, 
and  lose  both.  "  Except  a  grain  of  wheat 
fall  into  the  earth  and  die,"  said  Jesus, 
"  it  abideth  by  itself  alone ;  but  if  it  die, 
it  beareth  much  fruit." 


196  Christ  and  Life 

Our  interests  are  our  rights,  as  men 
view  them.  But  the  divine  gift  of  duty 
is  in  its  essence  a  right  transcending 
these  rights ;  the  right,  namely,  to  sur- 
render all  our  lower  rights,  to  scorn  our 
interests,  to  empty  ourselves  of  them  as 
our  Lord  did,  and  so  to  win  and  wear 
through  the  renunciation  of  self  the 
coronal  of  Christ,  who,  though  He  was 
rich,  became  poor;  though  He  was  the 
Son  of  the  God  of  all,  came  not  to  be 
ministered  unto,  but  to  minister,  and  to 
give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many. 

"  I  slept  and  dreamed  that  life  was  Beauty, 
I  woke,  and  found  that  life  was  Duty. 
Was  thy  dream,  then,  a  shadowy  lie? 
Toil  on,  poor  heart,   unceasingly, 
And  thou  shalt  find  thy  dream  to  be 
A  truth  and  noonday  light  to  thee." 


XX 

CHRISTIANITY  A  TRUST 

Two  views  prevail  in  the  Christian 
Church  as  to  the  nature  of  our  gospel. 
Some  hold  it  to  be  the  beneficent  gift 
of  the  generous  God.  So  believing,  I 
should  say,  "  This  good  gospel  is  mine. 
With  all  its  ample  grace  and  enfolding 
mercy,  it  is  my  own.  The  attitude  of 
others  toward  it,  or  their  ignorance  of 
it,  are  but  secondary  and  unimportant  in 
comparison  with  its  significance  to  me  and 
the  pleasing  sense  of  my  possession  of  its 
boundless  breadth  and  blessing."  As  the 
beginning  of  a  true  view  of  our  gospel 
one  might  pardon  this,  but  perhaps  any 
man  might  be  allowed  humbly  but  boldly 
to  denounce  it  as  a  conclusive  judgment. 
For  our  gospel  is  less  a  beneficent  gift 
of  a  generous  God  than  a  solemn  trust 
197 


198  Christ  and  Life 

of  a  just  Father  whose  love  is  equal  and 
whose  thought  embraces  all. 

Whether  one  regard  Christianity  as  a 
gift  or  as  a  trust,  is  more  than  a  matter 
of  term  or  of  theoretic  distinction.  It  is 
vitally  determinative  of  all  conduct  and 
character.  Viewing  the  gospel  as  a  gift 
either  to  the  individual  believer  or  to  the 
corporate  Church  is  to  sow  the  seed  of 
that  personal  selfishness  and  proprietary 
exclusiveness  of  grace  of  which  we  have 
already  reaped  a  too  lamentable  harvest, 
and  against  which  much  of  the  blind  so- 
cialistic movement  and  the  irreligious 
groping  after  brotherhood  of  our  day  is 
the  pathetic  protest.  We  have  passed  by 
the  time  when  any  true  man,  desiring  to 
be  of  service  to  his  day,  can  take  this 
Judas  attitude  of  isolation  and  personal 
selfishness.  As  an  old  and  powerful 
writer  of  the  Church  of  England,  prophe- 
sying before  his  time,  has  said,  "  Before 
any  man  can  now  leave  an  impress  upon 
his  age,  the  unhappiness  of  his  brethren 
must  first  make  him  grave." 


Chnstlanity  a  Trust  199 

Christianity  is  a  trust.  The  Christian 
is  a  steward.  A  dispensation  of  the 
gospel  has  been  committed  to  him,  and 
it  is  required  of  him  that  he  should  be 
found  faithful.  The  essence  of  the  gos- 
pel is  not  a  written  record  or  ceremony 
of  any  sort  whatsoever,  however  holy 
and  necessary  its  historical  statements 
and  forms.  The  essence  of  the  gospel 
is  the  reception  of  a  divine  trust  of  truth 
and  love  and  life  by  a  man  in  behalf  of 
his  fellow-men.  "  The  Office  of  Teach- 
ing or  Preaching  the  gospel,"  says 
Frederick  Myers,  whom  I  have  quoted, 
"belongs  to  men,  not  to  a  Book;  to  the 
Church  emphatically ;  though  not  to  the 
clergy  only,  but  to  every  member  of  it; 
for  a  dispensation  of  the  gospel  is  com- 
mitted to  every  Christian,  and  woe  unto 
him  if  he  preach  not  the  gospel."  The 
shame  of  an  eternal  dishonor  and  mal- 
feasance is  on  the  man  who  views  the 
gospel  not  as  a  trust  but  as  a  personal 
possession. 

Our  gospel  is  as  broad  as  the  tender- 


200  Christ  and  Life 

ness  of  God.  In  the  wideness  of  His 
mercy,  there  is  the  wideness  of  the  sea. 
As  Trench  wrote: 

"  I  say  to  thee,  do  thou  repeat 
To  the  first  man  thou  may'st  meet, 
In  highway,  lane,  or  open  street. 
That  he  and  we  and  all  men  move 
Under  a  canopy  of  love, 
As  broad  as  God's  blue  heaven  above." 

The  gift  of  such  love,  viewed  as  a  gift 
only,  may  be  sweet.  It  may  more  likely 
turn  to  ashes  in  the  hand,  like  the  apples 
of  Lake  Asphaltes.  But  viewed  as  a 
trust  for  the  blessing  of  our  brethren,  the 
reception  of  such  love  is  the  missionary 
summons  of  the  Lowly  Person  who  is 
our  King  and  who  left  one  clear  com- 
mand :     "  Go,  share  it  with  others." 

And  this  is  a  summons  not  to  clergy 
alone,  but  to  every  one  of  Christ's  breth- 
ren. As  Myers  wrote  in  his  noble 
"  Catholic  Thoughts  on  the  Church  of 
Christ  and  the  Church  of  England  " : 

"  A  man  that  feels  himself  to  have  re- 


Christianity  a  Trust         201 

ceived  an  unspeakable  gift  from  One  who 
permits  and  commands  him  to  offer  the 
Hke  to  every  man  he  meets,  surely  he  is 
precisely  the  person  who  will  be  most 
zealous  to  win  his  brethren  to  know  and 
to  love  his  benefactor.  Philosophy  was 
not  and  is  not  proselytising,  because  it 
is  proud,  and  because  it  does  not  and  it 
can  not  teach  men  to  love :  it  constitutes 
but  a  caste,  or  a  school,  or  a  sect;  and 
such  do  not  like  to  be  enlarged,  for 
thereby  the  distinction  of  each  of  their 
members  is  diminished.  But  Christian- 
ity is  more  than  this — it  is  a  society,  a 
fellowship,  a  brotherhood ;  and  the  char- 
ter of  its  incorporation  contains  a  com- 
mand for  its  extension ;  the  very  end  of 
its  existence  is  the  conversion  of  the 
world  to  communion  with  itself.  Chris- 
tianity is  the  world's  leaven ;  it  is  a  grow- 
ing Light ;  it  is  a  diffusive  Love ;  and  each 
member  of  the  Christian  Church  is  called 
to  be  a  herald  and  a  preacher  of  its  faith. 
The  love  of  Christ  constrains  him ;  that 
with  which  he  is  baptised  is  as  fire,  and 


102  Christ  and  Life 

will  burn,  and  burning  it  will  enlighten 
and  inflame.  A  man  who  has  felt  the 
blessing  of  the  gospel  in  his  own  soul 
can  not  but  be  anxious  to  impart  it  to  his 
brethren.  In  every  Christian  heart,  be 
assured,  Christianity  will  find  a  new  mis- 
sionary, and,  if  needs  be,  a  new  martyr." 
And  may  it  not  be  said,  without  risk 
of  misunderstanding,  that  no  true  gen- 
tleman can  allow  himself  to  be  open  to 
the  suspicion  of  breach  of  trust  ?  In  one 
of  his  journals  David  Livingstone  wrote 
of  feeling  "  much  turmoil  of  spirit  in 
view  of  having  all  my  plans  for  the  wel- 
fare of  this  great  region  and  teeming 
population  knocked  on  the  head  by  sav- 
ages to-morrow."  Then  the  thought  of 
the  Saviour's  chivalry  came  to  him,  and 
he  wrote :  "  But  I  read  that  Jesus  came 
and  said,  '  All  power  is  given  unto  Me, 
in  heaven  and  in  earth.  Go  ye,  therefore, 
and  teach  all  nations,  and  lo,  I  am  with 
you  alway,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world.' 
It  is  the  word  of  a  gentleman  of  the  most 
sacred  and  strictest  honour,  and  there's  an 


Christianity  a  Trust  203 

end  on't."  A  gentleman  of  the  most 
sacred  and  strictest  honour  was  He,  and 
His  disciples  dare  not  be  less.  To  play 
with  a  trust  as  a  trivial  thing  is  to  cease 
to  be  the  kind  of  gentleman  that  He  was, 
and  to  show  the  sense  of  honour  He 
showed. 

And  this  trust  is  a  trust  for  all  the  men 
of  the  Master's  brotherhood.  There  are 
vessels  of  gold  and  silver  in  His  house, 
but  there  is  no  vessel  unappointed  to  serv- 
ice, and  both  the  preservation  and  ex- 
tension of  His  gospel  are  dependent  upon 
the  free  discharge  of  service  by  all.  No 
gifted  class  can  perform  a  vicarious  sacri- 
fice, as  no  privileged  class  is  endowed 
with  exclusive  privilege.  Each  man  of 
us  has  his  trust  and  his  work,  and  per- 
haps neither  our  Lord  nor  His  Church 
nor  His  world  could  endure  our  dis- 
loyalty. For,  once  again,  as  the  good 
man  I  have  quoted  wrote,  "  The  way  in 
which  the  gospel  would  seem  to  be  in- 
tended to  be  alike  preserved  and  perpetu- 
ated on  earth  is,  not  by  its  being  jealously 


204  Christ  and  Life 

guarded  by  a  chosen  order  and  cautiously 
communicated  to  a  precious  few,  but  by 
being  so  widely  scattered  and  so  thickly 
sown  that  it  shall  be  impossible,  from  the 
very  extent  of  its  spreading  merely,  to 
be  rooted  up.  It  was  designed  to  be  not 
as  a  Perpetual  Fire  in  the  temple,  to  be 
tended  with  jealous  assiduity  and  to  be 
fed  only  with  special  oil ;  but  rather  as  a 
shining  and  burning  light,  to  be  set  up 
on  every  hill,  which  should  blaze  the 
broader  and  the  brighter  in  the  breeze, 
and  go  on  so  spreading  over  the  sur- 
rounding territory  as  that  nothing  of  this 
world  should  ever  be  able  to  extinguish 
or  to  conceal  it." 

When  Paul  said  in  his  last  Epistle, 
when  the  time  of  his  departure  was  come, 
"  I  have  kept  the  faith,"  he  meant  that 
he  had  given  it  away,  that  he  had  viewed 
his  acceptance  of  it  not  as  an  endowment 
of  personal  privilege,  but  as  a  holy  trust, 
and  he  besought  Timothy  that  he  should 
keep  that  which  was  committed  to  his 
trust  in  the  same  way.  There  is  no 
other  way  in  which  to  keep  the  trust  of 


Christianity  a  Trust  205 

God.  For  the  trust  of  God  is  the  duty 
of  service.  It  was  thus  with  Christ,  even 
to  the  bitterness  of  the  cross.     And 

"  It  was  well,  and  Thou  hast  said  in  season, 
'  As  is  the  Master  shall  the  servant  be  ' : 
Let  me  not  subtly  slide  into  the  treason. 
Seeking  an  honour  which  they  gave  not  Thee. 

"  Never  at  even,  pillowed  on  a  pleasure. 

Sleep  with  the  wings  of  aspiration  furled; 
Hide  the  last  mite  of  the  forbidden  treasure, 
Keep  for  my  joys  a  world  within  the  world." 


XXI 

OUR   FATHER   GOD 

One  of  the  most  precious  services 
rendered  by  Jesus  was  His  revelation  of 
the  father  heart  in  God.  Of  course  the 
thought  was  not  unknown  during  the 
Old  Dispensation.  "  A  father  of  the 
fatherless,"  David  calls  the  Lord. 
"  Thou  art  my  father,"  exclaims  he  or 
another  Psalmist.  And  Israel  pillowed 
Its  head  upon  the  assurance. 

"  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children 
So  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear  Him." 

And  God  had  invited  men  to  speak  to  Him 
as  children.  "  Ye  shall  call  Me,  My  Fa- 
ther." Jer.  iii.  19.  But  these  ideas  of  God's 
fatherhood  rested  upon  the  old  concep- 
tion of  the  father's  place  in  the  family. 
The  emphasis  was  not  on  tender  sym- 
pathy and  love,  but  upon  authority  and 
206 


Our  Father  God  207 

dependence.  "O  Lord,  Thou  art  our 
Father;  we  are  the  clay  and  Thou  our 
Father ;  and  we  all  are  the  work  of  Thine 
hand." 

But  Jesus  not  only  laid  bare  the  truth 
of  God's  fatherliness,  but  also  revealed 
thus  what  true  fatherhood  is,  and  both 
changed  our  conception  of  God  and  ex- 
alted our  notion  of  fatherhood.  He  did 
this  by  opening  to  us  His  own  inner  life 
of  relationship  to  God.  He  called  and 
conceived  God  as  His  Father.  He  laid 
the  emphasis  not  upon  God's  creative 
power,  or  His  almighty  sovereignty  over 
human  life,  although  these  are  just  con- 
ceptions of  God,  but  upon  His  loving 
fatherly  relations.  "  My  Father,"  are 
His  words,  or  simply  "  Father."  This  is 
almost  the  only  title  of  address  Jesus 
used.  It  was  never  "  O  infinite  One,"  or 
"  O  ruler  and  preserver  of  all  things,"  or 
"  O  great  and  eternal  God,"  but  just 
"  Father." 

"  I  thank  Thee.  Father,  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth  that  Thou  hast  hid  these  things 
from   the   wise   and   understanding   and 


2o8  Christ  and  Life 

hast  revealed  them  unto  babes."  Matt. 
xi:25. 

"Father,  what  shall  I  say?  Save  Me 
from  this  hour.  But  for  this  cause  came 
I  unto  this  hour.  Father  glorify  Thy 
name."    John  xi :  27. 

"  Father,  the  hour  is  come,  glorify  Thy 
Son,  that  Thy  Son  also  may  glorify 
Thee."    John  xvii :  5. 

"  O  My  Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let  this 
cup  pass  away  from  Me."     Matt,  xxvi: 

39- 

"  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know 

not  what  they  do."    Luke  xxiii :  34. 

"  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend 
My  spirit."    Luke  xxiii :  46. 

As  might  be  pointed  out  in  connection 
with  Jesus'  habits  of  prayer,  it  is  this  very 
intimacy  of  relationship  which  adds  such 
a  spirit  of  reverence  to  Jesus'  life.  Some- 
times He  prefixed  an  adjective — as 
"Holy  Father."  "Righteous  Father," 
but  He  does  not,  as  we  too  often  do, 
exalt  the  attribute  above  the  Father.  It 
is  not  so  much  the  justice  of  the  Father 
that  is  in  Jesus'  mind  as  the  fatherliness 


Our  Father  God  209 

of  the  justice.     It  is  the  person,  not  the 
quahty. 

And  all  Jesus'  life  and  will  were  sub- 
ject to  this  dear  Father.  "  He  that  sent 
Me  is  with  Me.  The  Father  hath  not  left 
Me  alone,  for  I  do  always  those  things 
that  please  Him."  John  viii :  28.  The 
very  deeds  that  He  did,  Jesus  said  He 
did  because  He  had  seen  the  Father  do- 
ing them.  "  The  Son  can  do  nothing  of 
Himself  but  what  He  seeth  the  Father 
doing;  for  what  things  soever  He  doeth, 
these  the  Son  also  doeth  in  like  manner." 
John  v:  19.  In  our  own  homes  we  con- 
stantly see  little  boys  doing  what  their 
fathers  have  been  doing.  Sometimes 
they  do  these  things  just  because  they 
are  their  fathers,  in  miniature,  and  their 
fathers'  spirit  is  in  them,  and  sometimes 
they  do  them  because  they  have  seen  their 
fathers  do  them,  and  nothing  will  satisfy 
them  until  they  have  done  "  just  as  father 
has  done."  Jesus  said  that  He  was  His 
Father's  own  Child  in  this  matter,  and 
that  He  did  what  He  saw  His  Father 
doing.     John  viii :  38.     But  it  was  also 


210  Christ  and  Life 

the  Father's  own  nature  in  Him  repro- 
ducing itself.  "  The  words  that  I  say 
unto  you  I  speak  not  from  Myself,"  He 
said,  "  but  the  Father  abiding  in  Me, 
doeth  His  works."  John  xiv :  lo ;  viii : 
28. 

This  went  so  far  with  Jesus  that  He 
could  truly  say  that  His  life  and  His 
Father's  were  identical,  so  that  the  man 
who  saw  Him  saw  the  Father.  John 
xiv :  9.  The  man  who  honoured  Him 
honoured  the  Father.  John  v :  23.  The 
man  who  loved  Him  loved  the  Father. 
John  viii :  42.  "  I  and  the  Father  are 
one,"  He  declared.  John  x :  30.  It  was 
this  that  aroused  the  bitter  enmity  of  the 
Jews.  John  x:3i.  The  most  precious 
part  of  Jesus'  message,  that  perfect 
atonement  between  the  Father  and  His 
children  which  Jesus  came  to  reveal  in 
His  life,  and  to  accomplish  for  us  in  His 
death,  was  the  thing  which  men  who 
thrust  the  loving.  Fatherly  God  away 
from  them  most  disliked.  It  was  blas- 
phemy, they  said.  John  x :  33.  Jesus' 
stern  reply  was  that  the  spirit  that  called 


Our  Father  God  an 

this  blasphemy  was  the  very  spirit  of 
hell,  for  it  antagonised  that  other  spirit 
of  sweet  trust  and  companionship  which 
is  the  spirit  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Mark  iii :  29,  30. 

Now  what  the  Father  was  to  Jesus  He 
would  be  to  me.  Each  one  of  us  may 
joyfully  say  this.  My  Father  knows  my 
needs  before  I  ask  Him.  "  Your  Father 
knoweth,"  said  Jesus.  Matt,  vi :  8.  He 
knows  because  He  cares,  and  He  cares 
more  than  we  can  care.  Do  you  think 
that  the  little  child  lying  sick  and  suffer- 
ing in  its  mother's  arms,  tossing  wearily, 
suffers  as  much  from  its  pain  as  the  help- 
less and  agonising  mother  suffers?  We 
never  suffer  as  much  in  our  own  suffer- 
ings as  in  the  sufferings  of  those  we  love. 
They  are  more  to  us  than  we  are  to  our- 
selves. But  God  is  a  truer  Father  and 
a  truer  friend  than  we  can  be.  He  knows 
and  He  cares  with  a  solicitude  greater 
than  we  can  know.  Oh,  let  us  think  of 
Him,  not  as  the  sovereign  God  only,  but 
as  our  dear  Father. 

And  His  knowledge  leads  to  ministry 


212  Christ  and  Life 

as  well  as  sympathy.  "If  ye  then  being 
evil  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  unto 
your  children,  how  much  more  shall 
your  heavenly  Father  give  good  things 
to  them  that  ask  Him?"  Matt,  vii :  2. 
How  often  we  have  been  impatient  be- 
cause God  seemed  to  be  withholding 
from  us  some  good  thing  that  we  de- 
sired! But  what  God  withholds  from 
us,  while  it  may  be  a  good  thing  in  itself, 
is  not  a  good  thing  for  us.  No  one  of 
us  has  ever  desired  what  was  truly  good 
for  us  with  anything  like  the  eagerness, 
the  anxiety,  the  solicitude  with  which 
our  Father  has  been  striving  to  give  us 
that  good  thing. 

And  the  Father  has  a  plan  and  a  will 
for  the  life  of  each  one  of  His  children. 
Matt,  vii:  21;  x:29.  If  this  were  not 
true,  life  would  be  a  very  insipid  thing, 
or  a  thing  exciting  only  because  of  its 
lawless  peril.  But  He  who  alone  knows 
enough  and  cares  enough  to  do  it,  has 
planned  out  every  human  life,  desiring 
the  noblest  things  for  it,  fitting  it  into  the 


Our  Father  God  213 

richest  associations,  disciplining  it  for  an 
eternal  service  of  glory.  The  worst  folly 
to  be  found  in  the  world  is  the  folly  of 
scorning  the  wisdom  of  the  thoughtful 
Father  who  knows  what  we  are  here  for, 
and  who  would  make  the  most  of  each 
one  of  His  children. 

My  Father  will  keep  me  in  per- 
fect safety.  "  My  Father,"  said  Jesus, 
"  which  hath  given  My  sheep  unto  Me  is 
greater  than  all;  and  no  one  is  able  to 
snatch  them  out  of  the  Father's  hand." 
John  X :  29. 

"  Hidden  in  the  hollow  of  His  blessed  hand, 
Never  foe  can  follow,  never  traitor  stand. 
Not  a  shade  of  worry,  not  a  touch  of  care, 
Not  a  blast  of  hurry,  reach  the  spirit  there-" 

Or  if  some  sorrow  should  come,  the 
Father's  own  protecting  hand  offers  com- 
fort and  will  wipe  away  every  tear  from 
our  eyes.     Rev.  xxi :  4. 

If  God  is  our  own  Father  let  us  love 
Him  more  and  trust  Him  more  and  please 
Him  more.     "  I  do  always,"  said  Jesus, 


214  Christ  and  Life 

"  those  things  that  please  Him."  Even 
the  perfect  God  who  needs  nothing  can 
be  pleased  by  His  children,  or  displeased. 
All  impatience  in  your  home,  every  harsh 
or  fretful  word  to  little  children,  each 
prurient  thought  or  wrong  desire  or  un- 
kind judgment  are  unpleasant  to  God  and 
grieve  Him,  while  He  derives  real  pleas- 
ure from  every  gentle  and  loving  word, 
every  bold  stroke  at  sin,  every  brave  at- 
tempt to  suppress  what  is  unclean  and 
unworthy  in  us  or  in  the  world.  We 
have  the  encouragement  of  Jesus  in 
thinking  of  God  as  truly  our  Father, — 
to  be  talked  to  and  consulted  with,  to 
help  and  to  be  helped  by,  as  truly  as  any 
earthly  father.  It  is  wonderful,  and  it  is 
wonderfully  good. 

"  Thou  God  of  might, 
Infinite    wisdom,    and    unmeasured,    matchless 
power. 
Whose  mindful  care  and  all-creative  skill 
Can  speak  a  universe  to  life  or  clothe  a  flower, 
Omnipotent,    omniscient    and    all-present, — 
still— 

My  Father  1 


Our  Father  God  215 

"  Thou  God  of  justice 
Who  holdest  out  the  balances  of  sternest  law, 
Who  will  remember  virtues  well,   nor  vice 
forget, 
Who  canst  not  pass  the  slightest  fault  or  flaw, 
Immutable,  austere,  and  just, — and  yet — 
My  Father ! 

"  Thou  God  of  love, — 
How  deeper  than  the  ocean  depth  and  strong 
as  death, — 
That  gave  His  only  Son  a  sacrifice  for  me, 
How  tender  as  a  mother's  whispering  breath, — 
O  God  of  mercy.  Thou  wilt  ever  be 
My  Father! 


XXII 

THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 

Everything  done  in  us  or  through  us 
iftat  pleases  God  is  the  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  "  No  man  can  say  Jesus  is 
Lord,"  says  Paul,  "  but  in  the  Holy 
Spirit."  I  Cor.  xii :  3.  And  every  time 
we  call  God  Father  it  is  the  Holy  Spirit 
in  us  whispering  that  dear  name.  Gal. 
iv :  6.  Christians  often  forget  this,  and 
sometimes  think  that  they  do  not  know 
the  Holy  Spirit.  The  Corinthian  Christ- 
ians forgot  it.  "  Know  ye  not,"  Paul 
asks  them,  "  that  ye  are  the  temple  of 
God  and  that  the  Spirit  of  God  dwelleth 
in  you?"  I  Cor.  iii :  16.  All  our  quali- 
ties and  capacities  are  gifts  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  whatsoever  they  may  be.  I  Cor. 
xii:  4-1 1.  We  are  mistaken,  therefore,  if 
we  think  that  we  can  be  Christians  and 
not  know  the  Holy  Spirit. 
216 


The  Holy  Spirit  217 

For  it  is  God's  Spirit  that  has  quick- 
ened us  into  Hfe.  The  least  interest  in 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  evidence  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  at  work  in  us.  And  if  we  now 
truly  love  God  and  are  following  His 
Son,  it  ts  the  Holy  Spirit  who  has 
wrought  these  things  in  us.  "  Except  a 
man  be  bom  of  water  and  the  Spirit," 
Jesus  told  Nicodemus,  "  he  can  not  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  God.  That  which  is 
born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh,  and  that  which 
is  born  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit."  John  iii : 
5,  6.  Each  one  of  us  who  is  now  alive  in 
Christ  was  made  alive  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 
We  may  not  have  known  when  He  did  it 
or  have  been  conscious  at  all  that  it  was 
He  who  did  it.  But  neither  did  we  know 
when  our  physical  life  began,  nor  have 
we  any  consciousness  whatever  of  how  it 
came  to  be.  As  our  physical  Hfe  sprang 
without  our  consciousness  from  other  life 
so  our  spiritual  life  sprang  from  God, 
born  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  As  we  look 
back  now  into  that  old  world  we  see  the 
difference,  as  wide  as  between  life  and 
death  and  we  can  thank  the  good  Spirit 


21 8  Christ  and  Life 

of  God  for  having  brought  us  hither, 
and  understand  now,  that  but  for  Him 
we  should  never  have  come  over.  But 
we  did  not  know  that  it  was  He  who  was 
bringing  us.  Those  who  are  now  com- 
ing or  waiting  to  come  do  not  need  to  see 
Him  or  know  Him.  All  they  need  to  do 
is  to  come  over.  When  they  get  across 
they  will  realise  who  it  was  that  brought 
them. 

As  it  is  the  Holy  Spirit  who  brings 
men  into  the  Christian  life,  so  it  is  He 
who  satisfies  them  there.  This  was  the 
lesson  taught  to  the  woman  by  Jacob's 
well.  The  Father  is  seeking  for  true 
worshippers  who  will  worship  Him  in 
Spirit,  for  He  is  a  Spirit,  and  in  such 
worshippers  a  well  of  living  water  will 
be  opened,  springing  up  unto  eternal  life. 
John  iv :  14,  23.  And  more  than  this,  out 
of  the  very  depths  of  the  lives  of  such 
men  the  Holy  Spirit  will  pour  streams  of 
living  water  to  bless  and  enrich  others. 
John  vii :  37-39.  But  here  once  again 
the  Holy  Spirit  may  do  His  work  without 
recognition.      Every    word    spoken    for 


The  Holy  Spirit  219 

Jesus,  every  truly  loving  act  the  Holy 
Spirit  prompts,  and  conceals  Himself  be- 
hind the  good  work  He  has  done.  He 
obeys  more  perfectly  than  any  one  else  in 
the  universe  Jesus'  commands,  "  Let  your 
light  so  shine  before  men  that  they  may 
see  your  good  works  and  glorify  your 
Father  which  is  in  heaven."  Matt,  v:  6. 
We  can  see  this  unique  characteristic 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  His  complete  self- 
effacement,  in  Jesus'  words  about  Him. 
"  The  Holy  Spirit,"  He  told  His  disci- 
ples, "  whom  the  Father  will  send  in  My 
name.  He  shall  teach  you  all  things  and 
bring  to  your  remembrance  all  that  I  said 
unto  you.  .  .  .  He  shall  bear  witness 
of  Me.  .  .  .  He  shall  not  speak  from 
Himself;  but  what  things  soever  He 
shall  hear,  these  shall  He  speak.  .  .  . 
He  shall  glorify  Me ;  for  He  shall  take  of 
Mine  and  shall  declare  it  unto  you."  John 
xiv:26;  xv:26;  xvi:i3,  14.  The  Holy 
Spirit  is  not  here  to  exalt  Himself,  to  im- 
press Himself  upon  our  consciousness 
and  experience.  He  is  here  to  fix  out  at- 
tention and  gaze  not  upon  Himself  but 


220  Christ  and  Life 

upon  the  words  and  the  face  of  Christ, 
and  to  impress  Christ  upon  us  and  make 
us  like  Him.  The  evidence  of  His  pres- 
ence, therefore,  is  not  disordered  and  thau- 
maturgical  commotions  in  us,  strange, 
unintelHgible  impulses,  unreasoned  ca- 
prices and  moods,  but  a  noble  love  of 
Jesus,  a  memory  quick  to  recall  what 
Jesus  said,  an  imagination  before  which 
Jesus  lives  again,  a  deep  longing  to  be 
like  Him,  and  in  due  time  a  still  and 
transforming  sense  of  His  companion- 
ship. 

The  Holy  Spirit  is  not  unreal  because 
we  do  not  see  Him  and  because  He  hides 
Himself  behind  Christ.  A  friend  asks 
me  to  do  a  hard  service.  I  do  it.  Why  ? 
What  was  it  that  led  to  the  doing  of  the 
hard  thing?  Was  it  the  spoken  request, 
the  undulation  of  the  atmosphere  between 
us  by  which  the  sound  from  his  lips  came 
to  my  ear?  Not  at  all.  It  was  my 
friend's  influence  within  my  will.  The 
sound  did  not  do  it.  My  friend  did  it  in 
me.  If  I  had  known  he  wanted  it  done 
it  would  have  been   done  without  any 


The  Holy  Spirit  221 

verbal  request.  It  is  intangible  influence 
that  moulds  us  even  among  friends.  Well, 
wipe  out  the  limitations  imposed  by  the 
material  world  and  it  is  not  impossible  to 
understand  how  the  Holy  Spirit  does 
what  He  does  with  us.  And  just  as  I  did 
what  my  friend  wanted  done,  and  yet  not 
I  but  he  in  me,  so  I  do  what  the  Holy 
Spirit  wants  done,  and  yet  not  I  but  He 
in  me.  We  do  not  need  to  worry  our- 
selves about  Him,  with  questions  as  to 
our  relation  to  Him,  such  as,  Have  I  been 
baptized  with  the  Spirit?  Have  I  been 
filled  with  the  Spirit  ?  What  we  need  to 
do  is  to  look  steadfastly  upon  the  face  of 
Christ  and  do  His  will,  and  in  proportion 
as  we  see  His  face  clearly  and  do  His  will 
sincerely  and  completely  we  may  know 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  filling  us  and  gain- 
ing true  sovereignty  over  our  lives. 

In  the  New  Testament  much  is  said 
justifying  the  assertion  of  the  inseparable 
relationship  between  the  Holy  Spirit  and 
Christ.  John  suggests  it  significantly  in 
his  comment  on  Jesus'  words  on  the  last 
day  of   the    Feast   of   the   Tabernacles. 


222  Christ  and  Life 

"  This  spoke  He,"  remarks  John,  "  of  the 
Spirit  whicii  they  that  believed  on  Him 
were  to  receive :  for  the  Spirit  was  not 
yet  given ;  because  Jesus  was  not  yet 
glorified."  John  vii :  39.  Both  these 
things  are  true :  as  Jesus  is  glorified  the 
Holy  Spirit  comes ;  as  the  Holy  Spirit 
comes  Jesus  is  glorified.  If  Jesus  went 
away  as  He  said  He  did,  that  the  Spirit 
might  come  (John  xvi :  7)  the  Spirit 
has  come  that  Jesus  may  not  be  away 
from  us,  but  so  near  us  as  to  be  in  us  and 
reigning  over  us.  We  do  wrong  if  we 
divorce  the  mystery  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
from  the  historic  life  and  the  present  per- 
sonality of  Christ. 

The  life  in  which  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
working  will  be  a  life  of  purity  and  of 
freedom.  The  union  which  He  estab- 
lishes between  Christ  and  us  is  a  union 
of  spirit  (I  Cor.  vii :  17),  making  impossi- 
ble to  us  whatever  is  impossible  to  Christ. 
He  begets  in  us  His  own  mind,  and  the 
life  and  peace  resident  in  it  (Rom,  viii :  6) 
and  produces  when  the  full  time  of  fruit- 
age has  come  His  own  characteristic  re- 


The  Holy  Spirit  223 

suits.  Gal.  V :  22,  23.  Chains  that  no 
one  else  can  break  He  breaks  and  creates 
for  us  a  real  liberty.  II  Cor.  iii :  17.  It 
is  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  a  word,  who  realises 
for  us  and  in  us  the  whole  loving  purpose 
of  God,  and  who  bids  us  in  return  to  look 
on  the  sweet  face  of  Christ  and  thank 
Him,  and  asks  only  to  be  given  free 
course  in  us  to  do  yet  more  and  greater 
things  for  us. 

The  thought  of  the  love  of  Christ  is 
familiar  to  us.  We  scarcely  ever  think 
of  the  love  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  yet 
Christ's  is  the  only  love  that  can  equal  it. 
"  Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this," 
He  said,  "  that  a  man  should  lay  down 
his  hfe  for  his  friends."  But  what  shall 
we  say  of  a  laying  down  of  life  for 
friends  that  is  also  a  laying  down  of  life 
in  friends?  For  the  Spirit  of  God  in 
working  for  us  must  work  in  us, — down 
among  the  unsightly  ideals,  the  evil  im- 
aginings, the  sinful  desires,  the  debased 
tastes.  There  in  the  dark  and  death  and 
disease  of  the  soul  the  pure  and  Holy 
Spirit  must  go  to  live  with  what  it  ab- 


224  Christ  and  Life 

hors,  to  struggle  with  it  in  the  night,  to 
wage  relentless  and  unresting  war 
against  all  that  exalts  itself  against  God 
and  the  divine  destinies  of  man.  This  is 
not  one  great  sacrifice  after  which  all  is 
over.  It  is  a  perpetual  service,  a  per- 
petual sacrifice.  As  we  think  of  what 
He  is  doing  in  us  let  us  cease  to  grieve 
and  resist  Him.  For  the  Spirit  of  God, 
make  room,  make  room. 


XXIII 
PAST  AND  FUTURE 

The  intimation  of  immortality  is  in  our 
restless  reluctance  to  let  the  past  and  the 
future  alone.  What  have  we  to  do  with 
them?  We  can  not  call  back  one  mo- 
ment from  the  past  or  hasten  by  the  frac- 
tion of  a  second  the  coming  days.  And 
yet  we  live  most  of  our  life  in  one  or  the 
other,  and  refuse  to  accept  confinement  to 
the  moment  that  is  present  with  us.  There 
is  in  us  an  undefined  sense  of  supremacy 
over  time,  a  consciousness  of  eternal  in- 
terest. What  was  and  what  will  be  we 
feel  are  alike  ours. 

And  in  every  Christian  heart  this  feel- 
ing is  a  right  feeling.  The  past  is  ours. 
It  holds  for  us  the  record  of  the  earthly 
life  of  Christ  and  the  salvation  that  He 
wrought  out  for  men.  That  would  be 
225 


20.6  Christ  and  Life 

enough  to  redeem  the  past.  The  time  in 
which  Christ  came,  which  gave  Him  room 
for  His  words  and  ways  has  a  right  to 
live  in  our  hearts.  And  the  past  holds 
the  evidences  of  God's  unfailing  love.  It 
is  itself  the  evidence  of  His  fatherly  edu- 
cation of  mankind.  Ten  thousand  noble 
acts  of  sacrifice,  the  birth  of  friendships, 
moral  victories,  great  expansions  of 
strength  and  vision — the  past  is  full  of 
these  things.  The  very  gift  of  memory  is 
proof  that  God  means  us  to  recall  what  is 
gone.  He  enjoined  upon  Israel  the  recital 
of  His  great  works  from  generation  to 
generation,  and  He  established  institu- 
tions to  be  the  perpetual  memorial  of  His 
goodness.  If  we  are  not  to  live  in  the 
past,  the  past  is  yet  to  live  on  with  us. 

"  The  thought  of  our  past  years  in  me  doth 
breed 
Perpetual  benediction." 

But  there  are  things  in  the  past  which 
we  do  not  want  to  have  live  on  with  us. 
If  it  holds  the  records  of  our  victories,  it 


Past  and  Future  227 

holds  also  the  records  of  our  defeats.  Our 
sins  were  in  it  and  it  is  dark  with  failure. 
And  we  have  no  right  to  keep  these  and 
carry  them  on  with  us  into  the  future. 
These  were  the  things  behind  that  Paul 
forgot.  And  we  have  our  own  duty  of 
forget  fulness,  too.  "  Thou  shalt  forget 
the  shame  of  thy  youth,"  says  the  prophet. 
Isa.  liv :  4.  And  God  promises  that  He 
too,  will  forget,  and  remember  our  sins  no 
more.  Jer.  xxxi :  34.  Let  us  let  these 
things  go.  They  have  served  their  pur- 
pose if  they  have  thrown  us  more  trust- 
fully upon  the  strength  that  alone  can 
guard  us  henceforth  from  stumbling.  If 
they  have  done  that  let  them  and  the  time 
that  holds  them  go. 

"  My  soul  is  sailing  through  the  sea, 
But  the  Past  is  heavy  and  hindereth  me. 
The  Past  hath  crusted  cumbrous  shells 
That  hold  the  flesh  of  cold  sea-mells 

About  my  soul. 
The  huge  waves  wash,  the  high  waves  roll 
Each  barnacle  clingeth  and  worketh  dole 
And  hindereth  me  from  sailing! 


228  Christ  and  Life 

"  Old  Past  let  go,  and  drop  i'  the  sea 
Till  fathomless  waters  cover  thee! 
For  I  am  living  but  thou  art  dead; 
Thou  drawest  back,  I  strive  ahead 

The  Day  to  find. 
Thy  shells  unbind !     Night  comes  behind, 
I  needs  must  hurry  with  the  wind, 
And  trim  me  best  for  sailing." 

There  are  some,  however,  who  are 
more  fearful  about  the  future  than  about 
the  past.  They  long  for  "  the  good  old 
times  "  and  lament  each  departure  from 
ancient  ways.  Their  golden  age  is  behind 
them,  and  the  shadows  fall  darkly  across 
the  forward  days.  But  this  is  slavery, 
and  we  are  free.  The  Spirit  of  the  good 
God  came  to  deliver  us  from  this  as  well 
as  other  bondage.  The  "  things  to  come  " 
are  ours.  I  Cor.  iii :  22.  Wherever  in 
space  or  in  time  we  are  borne  we  have 
nothing  to  fear. 

"  I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 
Their  fronded  palms  in  air, 
I  only  know  I  can  not  drift 
Beyond  His  love  and  care." 


Past  and  Future  229 

The  rapid  changes  that  are  passing 
over  the  world,  shaking  the  old  things 
until  we  know  not  what  is  established, 
can  not  shake  the  truth  that  the  Lord  God 
holds  ah  changes  in  His  hand  and  that 
they  are  to  Him  but  little  things.  Chris- 
tians, above  all  young  Christians,  should 
not  be  timid.  They  should  leap  with  ex- 
hilaration of  life  into  the  movements  by 
which  the  present  Spirit  of  the  Hving 
God  is  preparing  better  things  for  the 
world. 

And  we  may  believe  this  of  our  own 
lives  as  truly  as  of  the  world.  The  future 
holds  nothing  dreadful  for  us.  We  may 
face  it  with  a  sunny  smile  and  smile  on 
still  even  when  the  play  of  life  becomes 
stern  and  severe  and  we  feel  like  the 
grape  no  longer  flush  and  full  on  the  vine 
in  the  sun  but  crushed  in  the  wine  press. 
It  is  for  good.     Or 

"  Note  that  Potter's  wheel, 
That  metaphor! 


1230  Christ  and  Life 

"  What  though  the  earlier  grooves 
Which  ran  the  laughing  loves 
Around  thy  base,  no  longer  pause  and  press? 
What  though,  about  thy  rim, 
Scull-things  in  order  grim 
Grow  out,  in  graver  mood,   obey  the  sterner 
stress? 

"  Look  not  thou  down — but  up ! 
To  uses  of  a  cup, 
The   festal  board,   lamp's   flash  and  trumpet's 
peal, 
The  new  wine's  foaming  flow, 
The  Master's  lips  aglow ! 
Thou,  heaven's  consummate  cup,  what  needs't 
thou  with  earth's  wheel  ?  " 

And  even  death  is  a  trifle.  We  may 
not  wish  to  put  it  as  Swift  did,  that  "  it  is 
impossible  that  anything  so  natural,  so 
necessary,  and  so  universal  as  death 
should  ever  have  been  designed  as  an  evil 
to  mankind,"  but  we  can  say  that  all  the 
evil  of  death  has  been  abolished  for  us  by 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  and  that  we  have 
not  the  slightest  fear  of  it.  Just  beyond 
it  Christ  is  waiting  for  us. 

And  some  day  a  generation  will  come 
which  Christ  will  meet  this  side  of  death. 


Past  and  Future  23 1 

We  have  a  right  to  watch  for  Him  as 
though  that  generation  were  our  own. 
That  is  the  best  thing  about  the  future : 
Christ  will  come  in  it,  even  as  the  best 
thing  about  the  past  is  that  in  it  Christ 
came.  Our  Christian  lives  are  incomplete 
if  they  lack  this  hope  of  Christ's  return, 
"  the  blessed  hope  and  appearing  of  the 
glory  of  our  great  God  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ."  Titus  ii:  13.  The  early  Chris- 
tians found  in  it  incentive  to  holiness,  to 
purity,  to  diligence,  to  soberness,  to  ac- 
tivity and  with  it  they  comforted  their 
hearts.  What  it  was  to  them  it  can  be  to 
us.  "  Be  ye  also  ready,  for  in  an  hour 
that  ye  think  not,  the  Son  of  Man 
cometh."  Matt,  xxiv :  44.  "  And  now 
little  children  abide  in  Him  that  if  He 
shall  be  manifested,  we  may  have  bold- 
ness and  not  be  ashamed  before  Him  at 
His  coming."     I  John  ii :  28. 

And  that  is  the  best  way  to  prepare  for 
the  future  and  also  to  crown  the  past, 
namely,  to  live  right  in  the  present.  "  If 
we  examine  our  thoughts,"  savs  Pascal, 
"  we    shall    find    them    always    occupied 


232  Christ  and  Life 

with  the  past  or  the  future.  We  scarcely 
think  of  the  present,  and  if  we  do  so,  it 
is  only  that  we  may  borrow  light  from  it 
to  direct  the  future.  The  present  is  never 
our  end ;  the  past  and  present  are  our 
means,  the  future  alone  is  our  end.  Thus 
we  never  live  but  hope  to  live."  But  we 
never  shall  live  if  we  do  not  live.  Those 
are  ready  to  meet  the  Lord  when  He 
comes  who  are  watching  before  He  comes 
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Is  my  lamp  now  trimmed  and  filled 
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I  now  like  unto  a  man  who  is  waiting  for 
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"  Christ  my  hfe."  Col.  iii :  14.  If  for 
me  to  die  is  to  be  gain,  then  to  me  to  live 
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■  'li'!l!i'ililf''lillil''l{ 
|||i  I  (liljilil!  ''■  " 

llill ,. 


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